The company is under investigation by the SIU and has previously had a R140-million security contract terminated
- The City of Matlosana has appointed Dephetogo to guard municipal sites for three months without a competitive tender.
- A forensic report found the company previously submitted a fake UIF certificate to win a R143-million environment department contract, which was later terminated.
- The municipality's three-year security tender is on hold while appeals by losing bidders are heard.
The troubled City of Matlosana in the North West has appointed Dephetogo Trading to supply municipal security services. The company has previously had a R140-million security contract terminated by a national department, and a separate R68-million tender it won is being probed by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
On 28 October 2026, municipal manager Lesego Seametso issued an official letter appointing Dephetogo Trading as one of four service providers to provide physical security services for the municipality.
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According to the letter, the company will deploy guards on an "as-and-when-required" basis over three months.
The appointment was made without competitive bidding, through a deviation from normal procurement rules.
Seametso said, in documents seen by GroundUp, that the deviation was due to an appeal over the original tender and the need to fill a service delivery gap.
The municipality had previously advertised a competitive tender for a three-year security panel. But after conditional awards were announced (including to Dephetogo) in late September, unsuccessful bidders lodged formal appeals.
According to legal notices filed by the unsuccessful bidders' attorneys in September and October, the municipality allegedly went ahead with evaluation and conditional appointments of bidders who should have been ineligible because their previous contracts had been terminated.
They also argued that successful bidders had been allowed to fix, replace, or supplement bid documentation after the closing date and during evaluation, and that tender documents for one or more successful bidders had been executed by signatories lacking formal authorisation.
They said pricing schedules and evaluation criteria had not been rationally connected to the tender's objectives, rendering the overall procurement process non-competitive, unfair and unlawful.
GroundUp has recently reported on issues in the troubled Matlosana local municipality, which is under a mandatory financial recovery plan due to years of maladministration. Unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure reached R10.8-billion by 2024/25, and the municipality takes about 600 days to pay creditors.
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The City of Matlosana and Seametso did not respond to queries dating back to 29 October. Comments will be added if received.
Chequered past
In December 2023, the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment officially terminated Dephethogo's memorandum of agreement for a R140-million security contract.
GroundUp reported in 2025 that a forensic investigation by Morar Incorporated revealed that Dephethogo had submitted a fictitious Unemployment Insurance Fund (UIF) certificate during the tender process for the three-year security deployment across 65 sites.
The audit also found that unarmed personnel had been deployed to sites requiring 116 firearms (the company held only 27 firearm licences) and a single control room had been operated, over 1,000 km away from the sites.
In August 2026, the SIU was authorised to investigate a three-year R68-million security tender awarded by the Knysna Municipality to Dephethogo.
SIU spokesperson Selby Makgotho confirmed on 2 November that investigations into allegations of serious maladministration, corruption and financial loss in the Western Cape municipality are ongoing.
The investigation is looking at whether the procurement process and subsequent municipal payments were fraudulent, non-competitive or broke the law.
Dephetogo did not respond to queries from GroundUp by the time of publication.
