“Our parliament has become an instrument of corruption, it protects the corrupt, it promotes the corrupt.” – Zackie Achmat, #UNITEBEHIND (2023)

What happens when activists tell the truth about a powerful politician?

In the earlier parts of this series, we showed that corruption is more than just a headline. When PRASA was looted, the people who suffered were not the politicians and businesspeople responsible. It was the commuters and the economy which paid the price by losing a safe, affordable way to get to work, to school, to the clinic.

In part 4, we’ll discuss what happens when a civil society organisation names one of the people implicated in corruption and what that person tried to do to us in return.

When #UniteBehind spoke out about Sfiso Buthelezi, he did not answer the evidence. He sent us a lawyer’s letter demanding R2 million.

Who is Sfiso Buthelezi? 

Sfiso Buthelezi’s relationship with our railways goes back further than anyone else in this series so far. He served as a board member of the South African Rail Commuter Corporation – PRASA’s predecessor – before becoming, in 2009, the first and longest-serving Chairperson of the PRASA Board of Control, a position he held until 2015. 

The board he chaired was PRASA’s accounting authority: the body legally responsible, under the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA), for protecting the agency’s money and assets.

After that, he went to Parliament. From 2016 he served on the Standing Committee on Finance, before being appointed Deputy Minister of Finance (2017–2018) and Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (2018–2019). From 2019 to 2024 he chaired Parliament’s Standing Committee on Appropriations – the committee responsible for allocating more than R1 trillion to government departments, provinces, municipalities and state-owned entities, including PRASA itself.

The man who chaired PRASA’s board during the years in which it was captured and looted, was put in charge of the nation’s public purse. 

In an April 2023 an interview on Radio 702, #UniteBehind’s Zackie Achmat said the words quoted at the top of this article and then went further on to say: 

“…And in this regard, if you take Sfiso Buthelezi he was first a board member of the South Africa Rail Commuter Corporation, then became the chairperson of the PRASA Board. He benefitted personally and his companies linked to him benefitted personally from corruption to the tune of at least 120 million Rand and I believe much more. Treasury investigations found that he should be charged, and I know that charges have been laid against him, but nothing has come of it.”

That statement is the reason Buthelezi sued both #UniteBehind and Zackie. To understand why we said it – and why we stand by it – you have to understand what happened at PRASA during his watch.

What did he do?

Investigations by former Public Protector Thuli Madonsela in her Derailed report, by National Treasury, by the Zondo Commission, and #UniteBehind’s own research found that during Buthelezi’s tenure as Board Chairperson:

• The board maintained almost no oversight of the hundreds of contracts found to have been unlawfully concluded at PRASA between 2009 and 2015. The Deloitte reports commissioned by National Treasury found that there was “no evidence to suggest that the PRASA board questioned any of the deviations” from open and fair procurement, that the board “did not act with the necessary fidelity, honesty and integrity in the best interests of PRASA”, and recommended that the matter be reported to the SAPS for possible contraventions of sections 50 and 51 of the PFMA by the board.

• In 2017, National Treasury investigated 216 PRASA contracts worth more than R10 million each. Thirty of those investigative reports recommended that Buthelezi be criminally charged for his involvement, specifically for contravening the PFMA.

• He signed off on the infamous Swifambo ‘tall trains’ contract despite serious concerns raised by PRASA employees beforehand. Swifambo, fronting for a Spanish subsidiary of a German multinational, was awarded a contract worth roughly R3.5 billion to supply 70 locomotives. The procurement process contravened PRASA’s own policy and was rife with corruption. The locomotives were too tall for South Africa’s railways. Only 13 were ever delivered, despite R2.6 billion already being paid – R144 million per locomotive. Seven were later auctioned off for a total of R65 million. The South Gauteng High Court declared the contract invalid, and the Supreme Court of Appeal confirmed the ruling.

• Companies linked to him benefitted directly from the deal. Swifambo appointed Inala Shipping – a company 100% owned by his brother, Nkanyiso Buthelezi – to manage the shipping and logistics for importing the trains. Inala then appointed Sebenza Forwarding and Shipping for customs clearing. Sebenza was paid R99 million, and Sebenza was 55% owned by Makana Investment Corporation – where Sfiso Buthelezi was a director until 2016, after the money had been paid. He never disclosed this interest while chairing PRASA’s board. A flow-of-funds analysis prepared for the Hawks and revealed at the Zondo Commission demonstrates that companies associated with him were direct beneficiaries of the proceeds of corruption in the Swifambo case.

• Former PRASA board chairperson Popo Molefe testified at the Zondo Commission that Swifambo’s chairperson allegedly paid about R79 million to the ANC in 2015, after the multibillion-rand tender was approved.

• The State Capture Report recommended that the National Director of Public Prosecutions consider instituting a prosecution against Buthelezi, among others, in terms of section 86(2) of the PFMA, for approving the corrupt Swifambo contracts.

In September 2022, #UniteBehind filed a complaint against Buthelezi with Parliament’s Joint Committee on Ethics and Members’ Interests based on the above implications in state capture and maladministration at PRASA. We asked that he be suspended, investigated, charged and removed from Parliament.

The SLAPP suit

After Zackie’s Radio 702 interview, #UniteBehind and Zackie Achmat received a letter of demand from Buthelezi’s lawyers. It demanded a retraction of the statement, an apology published on all national media platforms and on our social media, and R2 million in damages – to be paid into their bank account within two weeks.

We refused. There was, and is, no reason for us to pay.

This is what is known as a SLAPP – Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation. A SLAPP is a lawsuit brought not to win, but to silence. It is a way that guilty companies, individuals, political parties and governments intimidate the community organisations and movements that expose their wrongdoing. 

The fight to protect the truth

His defamation claim will fail, because the truth told in the public interest is a complete defence. Every statement we made is grounded in official investigations, sworn evidence and court judgments. And Buthelezi cannot claim that #UniteBehind destroyed his reputation: by 2023, his record at PRASA had been documented for years in reports, investigations and the media. 

If this is successful, it will erase the heaps of evidence laid against them as well as the Commission’s recommendation that the National Director of Public Prosecutions consider prosecuting them for approving the irregular Swifambo locomotives contract.

We have successfully been admitted as a respondent to defend the Commission and its findings.

So far, the case has stumbled over its own errors. The applicants never obtained the Chief Justice’s permission that section 47 of the Superior Courts Act requires before civil proceedings may be instituted against a judge. In May 2026, Chief Justice Mandisa Maya refused to grant it. Buthelezi insists this is “not the end of the story” and says the applicants will press on, all the way to the Constitutional Court if necessary.

Confronted with the findings of the Public Protector, National Treasury, the Hawks and a judicial commission of inquiry, Buthelezi has not answered the evidence. Instead, he has spent his energy – and large sums of money– suing the activists who quoted those findings, and litigating to erase the findings themselves.

Who pays the price? 

While the legal process drags on, the public continues to pay. Commuters paid in stolen years, in jobs lost to late trains, in transport costs that swallowed their wages, in a destroyed economy from a collapsing rail system. 

Buthelezi, three years after the State Capture Report recommended that prosecution be considered, has faced no prosecution at all. Instead, he chaired the committee that controls the national purse and sued the activists who pointed this out.

We cannot build a just and equal society on corruption, intimidation and unaccountable leadership. Do not allow the truth to be silenced – not by letters of demand, not by R2 million claims, not by years of litigation. Let us defend the truth at all costs – while we still can.