The race charged a registration fee of R650 for SA citizens, R1,500 for other African nationals and R3,000 for international runners. The prize money promised ranged from R1m for first place to R6,000 for tenth place.
The provincial department of sports which had partnered with Lekhuleni confirmed that they are aware that athletes weren’t paid.
“Mpumalanga Marathon is a private non-profit organisation which has its own management to attend to its challenges. The department will not intervene in its affairs at this stage as there were no financial commitments made towards this project,” said spokesperson Sbongile Nkosi.
Athletics Mpumalanga president Paul Bester confirmed that the organisation has opened a case against Lekhuleni, a former employee of the National Lottery.
“There is a case at this stage opened against Lekhuleni because he is not coming to light with the payments,” he told Sowetan.
“We are waiting for the law to take its course now. I must also give detailed feedback to ASA (Athletics SA) this week because they have to discuss that issue again.”
Lekhuleni denied knowledge of any criminal case against him.
“I have assured all the runners that they will be paid and we just need to sort out internal issues, and I will have a media briefing next month to respond to all the questions,” he said without giving any time frames for payments to be made.
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