Durban won't act against officials, for now

TEN Durban councillors, several heads of department and municipal workers have been given a lifeline while the eThekwini council "goes through each and every item" in the Manase report, which found high levels of maladministration, fraud and corruption in the municipality. Heads were expected to roll after MEC for cooperative governance Nomusa Dube released the report on Tuesday.

But the council yesterday said it would not suspend implicated employees or take disciplinary action, as recommended by the forensic auditors, until it was clear on the proper procedure. "It is must be noted that the report has not found anyone guilty and it is therefore proper that different parties mentioned are given a chance to state their side of the story," city mayor James Nxumalo said. "But we must reiterate that we will take disciplinary action against officials and councillors that have been implicated."

The council declined to mention names, so Nxumalo did not comment on the allegations levelled at former mayor Obed Mlaba and municipal manager Michael Sutcliffe. The forensic investigation came after the auditor-general found that the city had irregularly spent R535-million and the Ngubane audit implicated Sutcliffe and three other officials in irregular housing contracts. Mlaba was alleged to have had shares in a company that nearly landed a R3-billion tender to convert the city's waste to energy. Dube said a company linked to Mlaba had allegedly expressed an interest in the tender and that was a breach of the municipal code of conduct.

The report claims that Sutcliffe, who controlled the city's R25.9-billion budget, contravened the Municipal Finance Management Act when he allegedly failed to promptly report irregular expenditure in dodgy housing contracts in writing to the mayor, the MEC and the auditor-general. It also alleges that Sutcliffe contravened the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act by not reporting fraud and corruption in a housing tender to the police. Sutcliffe, who is currently overseas, has not yet responded to the allegations. However, it was reported that he had said the allegation that he did not report corruption was "absolute nonsense".

The media report also stated that Sutcliffe demanded to know why Dube's sister was not implicated when "she was conducting business with the metro where she was an employee". Nxumalo said yesterday he was not aware of Dube's sister's business dealings with the municipality.

An ethics committee has been established to investigate allegations that 10 councillors had business contracts with the municipality. Nxumalo said 30 employees who had businesses with the municipality had already been disciplined and that the 123 officials implicated in the report would be investigated. "It must be understood that we are dealing with processes but those that are found guilty will face the full might of the law," he said.

Nxumalo said the report did not signal a crisis in the municipality. "It is, however, a wake-up call for us to arrest toxic practices that seemed to characterise the behaviour of our officials and councillors, disregarding applicable supply chain management processes," he said. "It is also revealing that if we address these loopholes within our systems of governance, the municipality could be on its way to achieving a clean audit before 2014. "We are therefore determined to root out the scourge of maladministration that has been afflicting us in recent years."

DA caucus leader Tex Collins said his party was part of the council but would continue to play an oversight role as the opposition party. "We will provide checks and balances as the opposition party. We have to hold the ruling party accountable and no one will stop us from doing that," he said.

Source: The Sowetan