The City of Tshwane has rejected claims that it deliberately delayed the blacklisting of controversial tenderpreneur Edwin Sodi.
Tshwane mayor Dr Nasiphi Moya said the process was slowed by legal and procedural challenges rather than a lack of urgency.
Moya also dismissed conclusions drawn in a recent Sunday Times article which suggested the metro had failed to act decisively and appeared indifferent to delays.
“I reject the conclusion it reaches that the City of Tshwane has deliberately delayed the blacklisting process or lacked urgency in pursuing consequence management. That characterisation is incorrect and does not reflect the facts,” she said in a statement.
Moya said it was important to correct the allegation that the city did not know the whereabouts of individuals linked to the companies involved.
“There is an important legal distinction between being aware of an individual’s general whereabouts and effecting formal service of legal notice on corporate entities involved in a tender process in accordance with prescribed legal requirements,” she said.
According to the mayor, the city made multiple attempts to serve legal notices on the affected companies and their directors through lawful channels.
Moya said these efforts were complicated by the entities no longer operating from their registered addresses.
The DA, however accused the ANC-led coalition governing Tshwane of dragging its feet and announced it would intervene directly by appointing a tracing agent to locate Sodi.
DA Tshwane caucus leader Cilliers Brink said the party would hand over Sodi’s details to both the city and National Treasury to unblock the stalled blacklisting process.
“We will also request the city to publish Sodi’s blacklisting notice online to ensure transparency and give him an opportunity to respond,” said Brink.
A report by the metro’s supply chain management division, dated September 2025, revealed that repeated attempts to serve letters informing Sodi and his associates of the intended blacklisting were unsuccessful.
Brink said the ANC-led coalition had “run out of excuses”.
“The ANC-led coalition in Tshwane has run out of excuses for why an application to blacklist Edwin Sodi and his associates has not been submitted to National Treasury,” he said.
“If successful, the application would prevent Sodi and Blackhead Consulting from doing business with the state, protecting communities like Hammanskraal from further harm.”
Brink said it was not difficult to locate Sodi, noting he had appeared before the Zondo commission of inquiry into state capture.
“It is not difficult to find Sodi, as the Sunday Times journalist demonstrated. Sodi is a corruption-accused individual who has appeared before the Zondo commission.”
In June 2023, the City of Tshwane announced it had initiated a process to blacklist Blackhead Consulting and NJR Projects after the companies, in a joint venture with CMS Water, failed to deliver on a R291m contract to refurbish the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant in Hammanskraal.
The contract was awarded in 2019 and terminated three years later due to non-performance.
The failure to repair the plant might have contributed to a devastating cholera outbreak in he Pretoria area in mid-2023 which claimed nearly 30 lives.
Brink said progress stalled after ActionSA handed control of the city to the ANC in 2024.
“In May 2025, the DA wrote to the Tshwane city manager and received written assurance that the blacklisting process was well under way. By September 2025, the city was offering excuses to a parliamentary committee as to why the application had still not been submitted to National Treasury,” he said.
“At the time, the DA warned that delaying the process risked prejudicing Tshwane’s case against Sodi — a risk the ANC-led coalition now appears willing to take.”
TimesLIVE