Mapisa-Nqakula trial: Ex-SANDF general denies helping wife secure military tenders

The Gauteng High Court in Pretoria on Monday heard detailed timelines of when the relationship between businesswomanNombasa Ntsondwa-Ndhlovuand her husband, retired Maj-Gen Noel Ndhlovu, started and how they managed perceived conflict of interests. Noel is the former deputy surgeon-general of the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), where his wife was a contractor and received contracts worth millions. The wife, Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu, is the key state witness in the corruption and money-laundering case against former defence and military veterans ministerNosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula.

She alleges that between 2016 and 2019, Mapisa-Nqakula solicited and accepted millions of rands in bribes from her to secure and protect lucrative defence logistics contracts. Her husband, Ndhlovu, took the witness stand on Monday. He testified that he first met Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu in 2014 during a meeting between the department of defence and her company.

The pair began dating in February 2015 and married in August 2016. Ndhlovu served in the SANDF for 26 years before retiring in August 2025. In October 2020 he was placed on precautionary suspension after the department entered litigation against his wife, who was accused of securing over R100m in military contracts without proper procurement processes.

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His suspension was subsequently lifted in April 2024. Ndhlovu maintained that he and his wife never discussed work, stating that he kept his medical and military business private while she kept her defence contracts to herself. He explained that his wife had been receiving tenders from the department of defence since 2013, before they began their relationship and before he even knew her.

When asked if he played any role in helping her secure these contracts, Ndhlovu stated that throughout his military career, he never sat on any tender boards or panels involving his wife’s business. Even while serving in the Joint Operations Division, he recused himself from panels overseeing those tenders. Furthermore, Ndhlovu noted that when Ntsondwa-Ndhlovu was awarded a R104m tender, which was later cancelled and replaced with a R79m contract, he was away on a deployment in Lesotho and was not involved in any related discussions. He added that they often joked about maintaining a “Chinese wall” between their respective affairs.

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