Deadly Water (Part 2): How Corruption Poisoned North West

On paper, CMS Water Engineering looked like a success story: a black-owned company winning multimillion-rand contracts to fix water and wastewater systems. In reality, insiders say it was rotten at the core. The company’s director, Rudolf Schoeman Jnr, allegedly diverted projects to his own white-owned firm while staff grew suspicious of a sprawling bribery scheme. By the time CMS landed the infamous R291-million Rooiwal wastewater contract in Tshwane - alongside tender mogul Edwin Sodi - its reputation was already tarnished. The failed project was later linked to the 2023 cholera outbreak that killed 47 people. In Part 2 of the investigation, amaBhungane’s Susan Comrie joins Phemelo to trace the company’s murky rise from a small workshop in Orkney to the heart of one of South Africa’s deadliest service delivery scandals.