SERIES: DEADLY WATER
Do we know the real story behind the collapse of the R291-million Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant project? Was the infamous tenderpreneur Edwin Sodi conned by his now-deceased business partner, as he has always claimed? Opinions remain divided on CMS Water boss Rudolf Schoeman Jnr – some see him as a maverick, others “the biggest bullshitter” they’d ever met. AmaBhungane went digging and found a trail of destruction across four provinces and a billion rand’s worth of critical infrastructure projects incomplete. Deadly Water is amaBhungane’s first podcast, told by the journalists who did the digging.
DEADLY WATER (Part 5): A zombie in the water industry
18 November, 2025
CMS Water Engineering was built up like a house of cards — shaky, precarious and one wrong move away from complete collapse.
DEADLY WATER (Part 4): The land of lamb and gold
11 November, 2025
Deadly Water is a series, read Part 1: The life and death of a tenderpreneur, Part 2: A trail of destruction across North West and Another Rooiwal debacle in Rustenburg, and Part 3: The dominoes fall.
DEADLY WATER (Part 3): The dominoes fall
4 November, 2025
Joburg Rudolf Schoeman Jnr took his father, Dolf’s, modest engineering business and – through bravado, ambition and alleged bribery – turned it into a major beneficiary of government tenders in the water industry.
DEADLY WATER (Part 2 continued): Another Rooiwal debacle in Rustenburg
31 October, 2025
In 2018, CMS Water Engineering was awarded an R85-million tender to upgrade the Bospoort water treatment plant, on the outskirts of Rustenburg.
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