BUFFALO City Municipality has fired its Public Safety Health and Disaster Management director after he was found guilty of failing to disclose a previous criminal record. BCM communications manager Keith Ngesi confirmed that the former director, Vuyani Lwana, “has been dismissed from BCM’s service with effect from 9 February 2010 following a disciplinary hearing for serious misconduct”. Ngesi said Dr Mkhululi Nkohla had been appointed acting director to replace Lwana.
The Daily Dispatch was unable to reach Lwana, whose cellphone had been confiscated by the municipality, for comment. BCM could not provide the name of Lwana’s attorney, who defended him during a disciplinary hearing. Last year the Dispatch reported that the then-acting municipal manager, Amanda Magwentshu, suspended Lwana. It was revealed that Lwana had failed to disclose, prior to his appointment, that in 1981 in King William’s Town he had been found guilty of assault and given a R60 fine or 60 days’ imprisonment suspended for five years, and that in 1987 he had been found guilty and fined R300, or 150 days in jail, for reckless and negligent driving in Dimbaza.
Lwana was also at the centre of a Labour Court dispute last year when traffic official Arthur Lopes won his case against the municipality for wrongful dismissal and was reinstated following a lengthy legal process. Lopes was dismissed in 2008 after he had disobeyed an order by Lwana to release an unroadworthy vehicle which Lopes had earlier confiscated. When Lopes learnt that the vehicle had been released by another law enforcement official on Lwana’s instructions, he laid a charge against Lwana for defeating the ends of justice. Arbitrator Martin Le R Koorts ordered that Lopes be reinstated and paid R61 200 in back pay.
Lwana also featured in a report by forensic auditors Deloitte two years ago, which investigated the municipality’s grass-cutting fiasco in which ex- corporate services director Wendy Maqekeza-Galada awarded R12million in contracts to a number of women’s groups, including her own company. Lwana, acting as municipal manager at the time, on a number of occasions allowed Maqekeza-Galada to deviate from normal procurement procedures, the auditors found. The auditors also recommended that BCM investigate Lwana’s role in at least three of the seven projects, and mentioned that Maqekeza-Galada had on those occasions approached Lwana for permission to deviate from supply chain management regulations, including when she authorised payments to her own company, to which he agreed.
Source: Daily Dispatch
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