“cesspool of corruption” at KDM

By Musa Mnyandu

It's official! KwaDukuza

Municipality resembles a

“cesspit of corruption”. That is, if the two reports tabled at Special Council Meeting last week are anything to go by.

Two comprehensive investigative reports were discussed in-committee at the Special Council, and both of them made damning findings against certain municipal officials, making KDM to look like a warehouse for corrupt individuals!

The first report, commissioned by the Municipal Manager to legal firm Shepstone & Wylie, investigated suspicions of corrupt activities within the municipality, allegedly perpetrated by certain municipal workers and officials, which range from suspicious transactions to ward committee members through KDM's bank account; allegations of fraudulent payments to fictitious contractor invoices, and allegations of misconduct by a service provider and municipal officials.

According to the Shepstone & Wylie's findings, the implicated individuals have failed to uphold Paragraph 2 of the Code of Conduct for Municipal Staff Members enshrined in Schedule 2 of the Local Government Systems Act 32 of 2022 as well as Section 8(2)(d) of the MFMA. Consequently, Mayor Lindile Nhaca has since directed Municipal Manager Nhlanhla Mdakane to ensure that appropriate consequences and accountability measures are instituted against those implicated, within seven working days.

The report found sufficient evidence of a junior municipal official making fraudulent stipends, through the municipality's bank account allegedly to “ghost” ward committee members. It is suspected that the said junior official might have defrauded KwaDukuza ratepayers of an estimated R602 40000.

The saga does not end there, as ratepayers may have lost a further R785 435,56, through fraudulent payments to fictitious contractor invoices, which funds were then allegedly diverted by the alleged perpetrator to their personal bank account. The S&W report further suggested that this amount could be higher because this official could manoeuvre funds between capital votes as far back as 2015, undetected by senior managers.

Upon hearing of such colossal malfeasance within the municipality, Mayor Nhaca was aghast.

“We welcome the report together with its recommendations. It is shocking that an amount of exceeding R1.3 million could just be defraud from the public purse. The municipal manager must work with speed to institute a criminal procedure with the South African Police Services. Such measures must include instituting lifestyle audits on employees dealing with payments to external parties and reporting the findings of the S&W investigation to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) and Hawks.

“When it comes to corruption, I take a no nonsense approach, all those implicated must be dealt with to ensure that justice prevails,” Nhaca said.

Contravention

The second report dealing with allegations of financial misconduct by a service provider and municipal officials, Council heard that following the municipality's internal audit finding that the service provider had been depositing monies due to the municipality into an unknown account, the fault was actually on the end of the municipality, whereby when the municipality changed its primary account, it failed to inform the service provider of this change, thus the service provider continued to use the old bank account until they were provided with the new banking details on 18 June 2021. The staff members responsible for communicating bank account details consequences after Council was apparently defrauded to serves providers were thus found to have contravened Section 8(2)(d) of the MFMA.

The Municipal Manager has been directed to institute disciplinary proceedings against all implicated officials.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) has reacted with shock to the findings of the two reports. DA Ilembe Constituency Chairperson Cllr Kathleen Naidoo said collusion between municipal officials and service providers for financial gain impacted adversely on service delivery.

“Any allegations of financial misconduct must be reported to the SAPS. Council must not hesitate to engage the Hawks to dig deeper into this corrupt matter,” Naidoo said.