ERMELO – Alton Mphethi, former disgraced president of the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC), is rumoured to resume work on a hotel he started a few years ago in town.

Mpheti was sentenced to ten years in prison for defrauding the Mpumalanga Education Department out of millions.

According to the Hawks, Mphethi, who had a contract with the department to transport schoolchildren in and around the Gert Sibande district, submitted duplicate invoices.

Mphethi was arrested in 2015 and at the end of July 2021 the Ermelo Magistrate’s Court found him guilty on 34 charges of fraud.

He was sentenced to 10 years, suspended for five years on condition that he started paying back the stolen money.

Mpheti was also charged, but found not guilty of the murder of a man in his house in 2008.

The court, however, found him guilty of defeating the ends of justice on June 7, 2016.

He was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment for that crime.

Highvelder, upon hearing about his rumoured venture, paid a visit to the site of the abandoned construction building on the corner of Kerk and Smuts streets.

The colossal structure is currently occupied by a family of three, a man, his wife and son.

In the yard, which is mostly overgrown, clothing was visible, fluttering on a clothesline, while two dogs basked in the winter sun.

One of the occupants said that Mpheti indicated that construction would soon resume, but that he was also preoccupied with developments in other areas.

He had granted them permission to stay there.

Highvelder contacted Mphethi for a comment on August 25 regarding the resuption of the construction, but he was reluctant to speak to the publication.

“People who are interested in knowing about the building can contact me directly,” Mphethi said.