Part 5: The Rehman Brothers: Phonetastic chapter

According to the aforementioned Treasury’s forensic report, the municipality concluded cell phone contracts with Phonetastic, a business managed by his brother, Riaz, who acts as the company’s spokesperson in this article.

June 12, 2019

Newcastle Advertiser 3 minutes read

In 2013, a man called Mr Mohamed conducted a Phonetastic presentation to the Newcastle Municipality. The report alleges that this man was in fact Riaz – an allegation the latter denies.

In February that year and while municipal manager Kebone Masange was out of town, a senior municipal director (Eugene Hauptfleisch) and CFO Musi Mayisela is said to have awarded a mobile contract to Phonetastic on behalf of the municipality. Both Hauptfleisch and Mayisela stated that they had not known that Phonetastic’s representative and Afzul Rehman were related.

Hauptfleisch stated that he had subsequently asked Masange to cancel the agreement. According to the report, an IT manager had been ordered to move cellphone contracts between Vodacom and Phonetastic as service providers. He was allegedly admonished when this did not happen by a Mr Mohamed who claimed that the mayor was infuriated as a result of the IT manager failing to get it done. The report alleges that the Mr Mohamed was in fact Riaz Rehman. The latter denies it.

It came to light that this would not be possible and new contracts were entered into between the municipality and Phonetastic after a letter from the former requested it in writing in February 28. (According to the report, Phonetastic was only entered as a supplier into the municipality’s database on July 5.)

Upon Masange’s return he was, according to the report, unhappy because the municipality had contracted with the relative of the mayor. He initially wanted the contract to be cancelled, but eventually conceded to additional contracts being taken out with Phonetastic.

The report says that about R584 886.64 was paid to Phonetastic for a number of mobile contracts and that the handsets were never received. Nobody was able to confirm which staff members the phones were intended for.

It is alleged that Riaz tried to conceal his family ties with Afzul Rehman during a presentation for Phonetastic to the Newcastle Municipality in 2013 by identifying himself as a Mr Mohamed. Riaz denies this saying there was a Mr Ismail Mohamed who did the presentation on behalf of Phonetastic and that he was not present during the meeting.

Municipality officials discovered that it was impossible to migrate cell phone contracts from one service to another and decided to enter into a new agreement with Phonetastic. Both Hauptfleisch and Masange recalled wanting to cancel the agreement, but it went ahead.

The municipality requested this from Phonetastic in writing on February 28, 2013. At that time, the report alleges, the phones had already been ordered ten days prior. Phonetastic would not be entered into the municipality’s supplier database until July 5 that year.

When Masange returned, he expressed unhappiness with the awarding of a contract to a relative of the mayor. Hauptfleisch said that he had subsequently asked Masange to cancel the agreement and that, according to his knowledge, no products or services had been obtained from Phonetastic, nor had money been exchanged.

In a telephonic conversation with Riaz Rehman, he said:

“We were never awarded a tender on Phonetastic EVER… it was a contract…Where the misconception came about is that people thought the municipality was paying me a R100 000 month for a cellphone bill. It’s bulls@#t! The money goes to Vodacom. If they (the municipality) never received their handsets, it’s simple….they just go to Vodacom, subpoena the IMEI numbers, Vodacom will be able to track the handsets.”

Rehman added that he lost out on the Vodacom deal and that he had not done any business with his brother as the two have not been speaking for years.

Afzul Rehman denied the allegations made against him. “It’s simple…I never stole one cent from the municipality and God is my witness,” he said.