Three years on, no breakthrough has been made in the gruesome murder case of Seipati Lechoano, former employee of the Mangaung Metro Municipality.
Since December 2018, her “mysterious” death has become more and more of a puzzle for the Free State police.
In the investigation of Lechoano’s death, even key security components such as CCTV camera footage at the municipality’s headquarters proved to be useless.
According to Brig. Motantsi Makhele, provincial police spokesperson, no arrest has yet been made.
Lechoano’s partially decomposed body was discovered in the boot of her car on 24 December 2018. The vehicle had been standing in the basement parking area of the Bram Fischer Building.
According to the police, her hands and feet were tied, and there were no visible physical injuries.
Because her body was reportedly in a decomposing state, the police indicated the initial postmortem could not determine the exact cause of her death.
Midway through 2019, Brig. Kgothatso Ramokotjo, the Park Road police cluster commander, reportedly told OFM News that despite being in possession of the CCTV footage showing the movements of the deceased, the footage had not been of much help to the investigation.
It only shows Lechoano’s movements around the Bram Fischer Building on 19 December, the day she was reported missing.
Her family reported they last saw her on 19 December, leaving home in Grasslands to head to her workplace.
Also midway through 2019, Qondile Khedama, spokesperson for the Mangaung Metro Municipality, told Netwerk24 the municipality had 235 CCTV cameras, of which 18 were at the Bram Fischer Building.
These security measures are, however, believed to be dysfunctional.
It emerged that Lechoano’s murder had come briefly after her promotion to anti-fraud investigating officer of the municipality, having previously held the position of secretary in the risk and anti-fraud department.
The trouble-ridden ANC-led municipality has since been placed under administration due to the authority’s inability to effectively manage affairs, ranging from revenue collection to clearing debt owed to service providers and rendering acceptable basic services to residents.
The gradual collapse of the municipality saw the credit rating agency Moody’s downgrading it to a Caa1 rating in 2020.
This stemmed from poor governance and management practices due to debt service payments, which include two loans worth a combined R51,9 million to the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA) and Standard Bank in December 2019.
