The Democratic Alliance (DA) notes the joint presentation of the Maluti-a-Phofung Local Municipality and the Free State Provincial Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) that served before the Select Committee on Cooperative Governance in the National Council of Provinces today.
In the interaction, the MEC for CoGTA in the Free State, Skully Nxangisa, indicates that when the province intervened in Maluti-a-Phofung in February 2018, the municipality was “on the brink of collapse, with a high level of maladministration”. The HOD of the same department then proceeded to tell the committee about, among other examples, 443 ghost workers that were on the municipality’s payroll, R720 million that had been written off in debt, R4,9 billion owed to Eskom and millions of Rands in litigation costs directly linked to the municipality’s collapse.
No one has yet been prosecuted for this.
What the MEC failed to inform the committee from the start, and which was revealed by the DA in the meeting is that the former Acting Municipal Manager, Solomon Nyembe, is allegedly still employed by the municipality and is subject to an SIU investigation and that the former Acting Chief Financial Officer was arrested for fraud related to the illegal appointment of a security company. Yet, such individuals only get redeployed into other positions without facing consequences for their maladministration of the municipality and public funds.
The DA further commented that the ANC Chief Whip in the Provincial Legislature should face prosecution for ruining the Jewel of the Free State, at this municipality was known, and for nearly collapsing its multi-million Rand industries that are responsible for large scale job creation in the area.
Tshabalala should resign immediately from public office on the account of the devastation that was caused, by the MEC’s own admission, to the municipality of Maluti-a-Phofung and its people. It remains preposterous that a person who collapsed a municipality chairs a committee that oversees financial management of provincial government departments and municipalities in the Free State.
The DA challenges the MEC to embark on a comprehensive forensic audit into the finances of Maluti-a-Phofung, more particularly during the time of Tshabalala’s tenure in order to bring all those responsible for maladministration to account. If the ANC wants to prove that it is serious about fighting corruption and poor governance, it should start by acting against those found to be guilty of this within its own ranks.