THE indemnity the Nkomazi municipality gave chief financial officer Sheila Mabaso - after her failure to apply appropriate procurement procedures that led to the loss of millions of rands - has returned to haunt them. In February this year the municipality decided to indemnify Mabaso against charges of corruption - despite a Section 106 forensic report by Grant Thornton, a business risk services firm, which strongly implicated her.
MEC for cooperative governance and traditional affairs Norman Mokoena released the report early this year showing that Mabaso failed to apply due care in her section, which resulted in "irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure". The then municipal manager Sabelo Shabangu was also implicated for having failed to ensure that the municipality maintained an effective system of expenditure control. This, according to the report, includes procedures for the approval, authorisation, withdrawal and payment of funds.
Mabaso turned witness against Shabangu, resulting in his suspension in 2008 and threatened to withdraw from the witness stand if recommendations by the Grant Thornton report were implemented. Mabaso's threat resulted in her indemnification and Shabangu was finally fired on June 10 this year - without testifying in the case against him.
The municipality has now scheduled a general council meeting for Wednesday and Sowetan can reveal that the agenda includes the tabling of the Section 106 report that the municipality had always wished could disappear. The tabling of this report might mean that its recommendations - which include action against Mabaso - have to be implemented. Repeated attempts to contact Nkomazi mayor Johan Mavuso were unsuccessful.
Nkomazi spokesperson Cyril Ripinga yesterday declined to give reasons for it having taken seven months for the report to be tabled. "If you were in my shoes what were you going to say under the circumstances? I can only comment after the council sitting."
Source: The Sowetan
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