Arrest warrant issued for Nombiba

A warrant has been issued for the arrest of Nelson Mandela Bay ANC councillor Bongo Nombiba, with time having run out on his desperate attempts to avoid spending another night in jail.

Hawks provincial spokesperson Captain Annelisa Feni said the warrant was authorised on Tuesday after Nombiba failed to hand himself over to authorities as per a court order.

“He was supposed to hand himself over on Friday [last week] in court but allegedly arrived after hours when the court was already closed,” Feni said. He was then warned to present himself to the clerk of the Port Elizabeth Magistrate’s Court on Monday, but failed to do so, she said.

Nombiba once again failed to show up on Tuesday and a warrant was subsequently issued for his arrest.

The Ward 20 councillor was convicted on fraud and money laundering charges in the Port Elizabeth Commercial Crimes Court in March 2018 after it was found that he had pocketed R20,000 meant for the Thulamangwane Community Project, a non-government organisation that cares for the elderly and cleans schools.

He was later sentenced to an effective five years in prison.

Nombiba had spent just three months of his sentence at St Albans Prison when he was released on bail – and was back in council – pending the outcome of an application for leave to appeal against both his conviction and sentence.

Prior applications for leave to appeal to the commercial crimes court, and later the Grahamstown High Court, were turned down. Then, on February 22, a similar application to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) also failed.

His only option was then to petition the SCA judge-president in terms of Section 17(2)(f ) of the Superior Courts Act for him to reconsider the finding – or hand himself over by Friday last week.

Lawyer Thabo Kwinana, who had acted for Nombiba in his application for leave to appeal to the SCA, said this week that he had not received any further legal instructions from Nombiba.

In 2014, Nombiba had facilitated a donation from the Ward 20 municipal discretionary fund for Thulamangwane.

The trial magistrate found that Nombiba had instructed the group to put the request in writing, but to not say how much it was asking for.

On November 4 2014, the funds were paid by the municipality into the NGO’s Standard Bank account.

Two days later, Nombiba told the NGO’s management the request had been approved and then convinced two of the members to withdraw R7,000 and R13,000 respectively to be handed over to him.

Nombiba was not at his home and could not be reached on his cellphone.