The Electoral Commission (IEC) has confirmed that former Tshwane roads and transport MMC Sheila Senkubuge was “verified” as a SA citizen.

This follows a Sunday Times report that Senkubuge’s citizenship status had been questioned since 2017.

According to the Sunday Times, Senkubuge resigned last week after an affidavit was circulated alleging that she had arrived in SA from Uganda in 2011 and was not yet a naturalised citizen when she was elected.

She also resigned a few days after a leaked audio recording in which she is allegedly heard having “sex” with now suspended mayor Stevens Mokgalapa.

The Sunday newspaper said an e-mail from the city’s protocol officer, Lerato Machaba, had revealed that senior officials in the metro knew about the questionability of Senkubuge’s citizenship status six months after she was elected as a DA councillor in 2016.

“Unfortunately today around 10.45, I received a call from Home Affairs notifying me that the MMC Sheila Lunn Senkubuge is a non-citizen of the republic of SA and she doesn’t qualify to have an official passport not even a tourist passport of RSA,” the paper quoted the e-mail as saying.

In a statement issued on Sunday, IEC said Senkubuge was verified as a citizen, hence she was placed on the voters' roll.

“It  is on this basis that she was able to contest as a candidate in the 2016 general elections of municipal councils,” the IEC said.