www.thesouthafrican.com
4 - 10 March 2014
Issue 555
New SA High Commissioner haunted by controversy
| The new High Commissioner Obed Mlaba takes office in London after a six-month wait, as his past continues to haunt him by sertan sanderson
Prince Harry shakes hands with Archbishop Desmond Tutu as he arrives at Westminster Abbey in London for a memorial service for the former South African president Nelson Mandela on Monday. Photo: John Stillwell/PA Wire.
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FORMER Mayor of Durban Obed Thembinkosi Mlaba has been confirmed as the next South African High Commissioner to the UK. Mlaba will be the sixth person to fill the highest public office as South Africa’s diplomatic representative in London since 1994. He will be replacing Dr Zola Skweyiya, whose term ended last year, leaving the High Commission as well as expats in the dark about a successor for over six months. As one of his first acts as new High Commissioner, Mr Mlaba attended the memorial service for former President Nelson Mandela, held at Westminster Abbey on 3 March 2014 – despite not having presented himself to the Queen yet, as is protocol. The SA High Commission had not officially confirmed who the next ambassador at the prestigious Trafalgar Square address would be up until last week, when Mlaba’s prospective attendance of the service had to be justified. Mlaba brings 20 years of active participation in South Africa’s young democracy to the table, as well as credits in the struggle movement beforehand. However, the new High Commissioner may face a choice few struggles in his own right, as corruption charges dating back to his days as mayor of Durban continue to tarnish his reputation. Mlaba’s CV reads otherwise like a triumph, with his involvement on the boards of several South African companies making him a true success story of the new South Africa.
Obed Mlaba
Born in Estcourt (then-Natal) in 1943, Obed Mlaba attended Catholic schools throughout his education, leading all the way up to his matric. He obtained a Master of Business Administration later in life from the International Management Centre, which is part of Revans University. The online degree, however, is not recognised in the UK or the US. An erstwhile member of the United Democratic Front (UDF), Mlaba joined the ANC’s Durban branch in the early 1990s as soon as the party was unbanned. Within a few years, his political career propelled him to becoming the first democraticallyelected Mayor of Durban in 1996. Mlaba was to hold the position for 15 years, making him one of the country’s longest serving mayors and a celebrated leader. Towards the end of his tenure, Mlaba faced some heavy allegations of corruption, following a number of incongruences in the books of eThekwini (Durban) Municipality. In addition to over R500 million of misspent funds during Mlaba’s time as Mayor of Durban, he is also suspected to have deliberately attempted to
direct a R3 million city tender to a “preferred” company, in which he held 20 per cent of the shares. Two of his daughters were also alleged to have been implicated in the corruption scandal, although it has not been established whether they were knowingly involved. Mlaba had previously given tenders to family members and friends, but had never been seen to benefit himself directly from redirecting taxpayers’ money into his own pockets – up until the end of his tenure. Obed Mlaba has always rejected the allegations, saying that he was not personally involved in the act of awarding tenders. A report published after the findings, however, implicated the former Durban Mayor in “tender rigging, fraud and corruption” along with other senior city officials, amounting to a total of over R2 billion in suspicious irregularities. But in true South African style, Mlaba didn’t have to face any prison time for his alleged actions – that is if you don’t call being stuck on the British Isles for the next five years a fate worse than imprisonment.
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