A senior Home Affairs official is allegedly refusing to approve invoices from service providers; instead he demands bribes in return for having the invoices paid, claims a City Press report.

The allegations are contained in a whistle-blower complaint sent to Home Affairs Minister Leon Schreiber, Parliament and the Public Service Commission.

In the complaint, one lawyer, who identified himself as Mareng Mareng (an adopted name), alleged that lawyers were being frustrated by the chief director responsible for legal, Percy Tshabane.

He is accused of soliciting bribes and monetary benefits from the service providers by asking them to fund his music career through requesting money to purchase a sound system, his children's school fees and his lifestyle. 

The complaint reads: ‘Service providers are not bribing and soliciting favours from Percy Tshabane; instead, he is the one frustrating them by withholding their invoices for 60 to 180 days in order to extort money from them (in the disguise that he's doing them a favour).’

Mareng quoted the National Treasury Quarterly Report, which stipulated that failure to pay invoices within 30 days constitutes financial misconduct, which is chargeable under the labour law framework.

City Press says it has seen several text messages between Tshabane and one of the lawyers on the department's labour relations panel.

In one of the text messages, purportedly from Tshabane to one lawyer, he asked: ‘Are you winning? I only managed to get R2 000 and I am short of R3 000.’

Another lawyer said the chief director once asked for R5 000 for rent, and because they were owed more than R500 000, he gave him R10 000.

Home Affairs CFO Gordon Hollamby asked for proof of the allegations.

‘Should you have concrete evidence of the official soliciting favours from the suppliers, please share such. Given the seriousness of the allegations, my personal view is that this matter can best be investigated by an entity with sufficient powers outside the department.’

Tshabane told City Press that he 'received a call while on leave from an employee of one of the service providers who said he understood that I was holding on payments, and they would not be paid'.

He added: 'He mentioned to me a lot of things that were said, and I indicated to him that we would only pay in April 2025.’

Tshabane said that, on his return, he took it upon himself to have an official meeting with the service provider just to explain what was holding their payments, which they understood.

'… there is no way that the department or an individual will hold payment, as it is against the prescripts. I received an intention to discipline on 20 November 2024 for alleged failure to pay within 30 days. This is to indicate that payment of invoices is a priority, and we do not miss that if the invoices comply with the service level agreement (SLA).’

He added that since the legal fraternity was a highly regulated environment, he found it perplexing that the allegations were levelled against him and said if there were unreasonable delays or he was soliciting bribes, service providers could invoke a clause dealing with dispute resolution in the SLA or escalate it to higher authorities. 

'To this end, I deny having requested money from a service provider.’

Full City Press report