EXCLUSIVE: Fake degrees and phantom gigs — the bogus claims of DA candidate Abdulkader Elyas

Emails from high-ranking DA electoral candidate Abdulkader Elyas during his time serving on the University of Cape Town SRC appear to be littered with false claims.

Five years before the DA sanctioned Cape Town councillor Abdulkader Elyas for lying about being a medical doctor, he was claiming an extraordinary side career as an in-demand speaker for big corporates and international foundations while still a University of Cape Town (UCT) student.

Emails sent by Elyas obtained by Daily Maverick from his 2018/2019 stint on the UCT Student Representative Council (SRC) contain falsehoods about his professional affiliations and activities and suggest a pattern of using fabricated, impressive-sounding speaking events to justify his absence from SRC meetings.

One such talk, which Elyas claimed was scheduled for April 2019, was described as a “closed” event, allegedly worth $3,500 to the organisers, where Elyas was slated as delivering an insider’s briefing on “the kingmakers of the D******* *****E”: presumably the Democratic Alliance.

On Wednesday, Elyas declined to give Daily Maverick on-record comment.

The DA’s Federal Legal Commission (FLC) was meeting on Wednesday evening to consider the 31-year-old’s fate within the party after he reportedly failed to comply with a previous disciplinary agreement hammered out after News24 exposed the fact that he did not have qualifications in either medicine or actuarial science, contrary to his claims.

The DA federal council chair, Ashor Sarupen, told Daily Maverick he could not discuss internal disciplinary matters.

The 2019 SRC emails show Elyas repeatedly excusing himself from meetings with the excuse that he was required to carry out public speaking engagements elsewhere.

By the end of March 2019, the then SRC president, Asanda Lobelo, appeared to be demanding concrete proof of these speaking gigs.

An email sent by Elyas to Lobelo on 1 April 2019 – but apparently no April Fool’s joke – read: “You made a request for a verifiable electronically signed email that serves as proof of the speaking arrangements that I have scheduled due to my contractual obligation to one of my Sponsors and partners.”

Elyas let Lobelo know that he was “under a Non Disclosure Agreement [NDA]” which prohibited him from sharing information about the activities of his “sponsors” – but out of “respect” was attaching a redacted copy of an email confirming his speaking engagements sent by the organisers.

Elyas added that he trusted Lobelo would accept the legally-binding nature of an NDA and “not request information that could compromise myself legally any further than required”.

The email Elyas appended as proof of his speaking engagements was purportedly from an email address ending in the domain name of the Edmond de Rothschild Foundation, an international philanthropic network. The foundation did not respond to Daily Maverick’s questions on Wednesday.

The email addressed Elyas as “CEO of Bokamoso Philanthropic Organisation”, “CEO of Elyas Investment Inc”, and “Majority Shareholder” of Teach Me 2 and several other companies.