Documentation has emerged that the Central Gauteng Athletics president, Karabo Mabilo Thobakgale, was debarred from the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) by ABSA Bank on 14 November 2022 as she “Does not comply with personal qualities of honesty and integrity”.
Mabilo, her maiden name by which she seems to refer to herself these days, did not disclose this sanction before her election to the presidency. When it was discovered, she did not deny it but rather claimed that she “did not know about the disbarment”. This according to well-placed sources.
She was also recently admitted as an attorney on 20 March 2026 and, once again according to sources, did not disclose the disbarment. This is a very serious ethical breach. If Mabilo did in fact know of her disbarment and failed to disclose this to the court when she was admitted, it should result in her being struck from the roll of attorneys.
I asked Mabilo for comment and received the following reply:
“Dear Stuart
Thank you for your email.
The matter you have raised has been formally referred to the Executive Board of Central Gauteng Athletics and is currently being dealt with by the board through the appropriate governance processes.
For transparency, the Board is fully aware of the matter and I have also copied the Presidium [deputy president Lethabo Mashigo and general manager Mandla Radebe] on this correspondence.
Given that the matter is now before the Board, I do not intend to pre-empt that process through individual correspondence. Any questions relating to the matter, please feel free to address these through the appropriate Board process.”
However, accusations have been made that the disciplinary committee looking into Mabilo is stacked with people who are close friends with the CGA Presidium and owe her favours including Elliot Motaung who is a director of the Soweto Marathon NPC that organised the ill-fated 2025 race. At least one CGA board member has resigned in protest over governance and concerns over financial irregularities.
Ahead of the 2025 Soweto Marathon there was much squabbling and legal challenges as to who “owned” the Soweto Marathon and was entitled to host the event. Ultimately CGA sided with the Soweto Marathon NPC and sidelined the Soweto Marathon Trust but the race was mired with controversy with a far lower number of entrants than expected, the death of a female athlete and, almost a year after the event, has failed to pay a single cent to the prize winners.
READ MORE: Soweto Marathon Prize Money: Empty Promises & Empty Pockets
Mabilo was elected to the CGA presidency in January 2026 after serving as the deputy president on the previous board. The previous board was dissolved in August 2025 after clubs voted that the board had become dysfunctional and could no longer effectively govern the organisation.
Directly after her election, Mabilo was quoted in a Top Runner article saying, “I’m going to bring back CGA to its glory days. I’m going to ensure that in terms of PR, people see that CGA has good leaders.” However, Mabilo apparently refused all requests of vetting. In addition, during a council meeting CGA general manager Mandla Radebe admitted that no board members had been vetted. I have received tip offs that other current board members have been implicated in fraud charges.
As for Mabilo’s claims that she did not know about her disbarment, this appears incredibly unlikely. The FSCA is South Africa’s market conduct regulator for the financial sector. Its role is to supervise how financial institutions treat customers, enforce conduct standards and ensure that people providing financial advice or intermediary services comply with legislation such as the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act (FAIS). The FSCA also maintains registers of all authorised financial services providers (FSPs), representatives and debarred persons.
A FSP cannot simply decide to debar someone without due process being followed – and notification of the charges and disbarment would be paramount to complying with the legislation. The implications of getting disbarred are large – it essentially means that you cannot work anywhere in the financial sector and the public nature of the disbarring could be considered as major reputational damage for the disbarred person. In short, this is not an action that ABSA would have taken lightly.
As such the Mabilo must have been given a fair opportunity to respond. The process generally includes:
- Investigation of the alleged conduct.
- Notice of the intended debarment.
- Opportunity for the representative to provide a written response and/or request a hearing.
- A reasoned decision.
- Notification of rights to challenge or seek reconsideration.
I reached out to ABSA for comment but no reply had been received at the time of publishing. Whilst Mabilo’s disbarment does not necessarily mean that she committed a crime or was convicted of fraud, it does mean that ABSA found that there was sufficient evidence that the person’s conduct called their honesty, trustworthiness and / or integrity into question.
Examples of conduct that could potentially lead to ABSA’s sanction against Mabilo include:
- Falsifying records or documents.
- Misrepresenting information to clients, an employer, or a regulator.
- Providing misleading disclosures.
- Theft, fraud, or attempted fraud.
- Forging signatures.
- Concealing important information.
- Deliberately breaching compliance requirements.
- Dishonest conduct during an investigation or disciplinary process.
CGA board members receive an honorarium of R12,000 per year (irrespective of performance). This is paid in two tranches with the second R6,000 being paid in mid-December. However, sources report that, due to Mabilo having financial difficulties, her honorarium has already been fully drawn. The approval was reportedly done by general manager Mandla Radebe without board or finance committee approval. I have also confirmed with a source that the finance committee was irregularly bypassed in 2024 so that the cash-strapped Mabilo could get her honorarium early.
This is a developing story and I am always happy to gather additional information from interested parties on therunningmann@gmail.com.
READ MORE: The Real Reason City to City was Cancelled: Greed & Incompetence
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Good for you Stuart.The worms are coming out of the woodwork..Notify the LPC and ASA as well.The latter might just turn a blind eye to this issue.Looks like she has entrenched herself with the support of unvetted characters with shady posts.