North West SCOPA to meet law enforcement Agencies over R5,1 billion irregular expenditure in Rustenburg Local Municipality
The North West Provincial Legislature’s Standing Committee on Provincial Public Accounts (SCOPA) will hold an oversight meeting with the South African Police Service including the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations (The Hawks) to discuss investigations into the R5, 1 Billion irregular expenditure that was incurred by Rustenburg Local Municipality in the financial years that ended 30 June 2019.
This follows Municipal Finance Management Act public hearings with Rustenburg and Naledi Local Municipalities in the Legislature Committee Room 2.
According to the 2018/19 audit report, Rustenburg Local Municipality also incurred just over R1billion in unauthorised expenditure and fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R793 000 due to contravention of supply chain management requirements and policies.
SCOPA Chairperson, Hon. Job Dliso said there has been no form of intervention from the Provincial Treasury or Department of Cooperative Governance and Human Settlements such as Section 139 intervention. “We cannot allow a situation where the municipality is in disarray yet the two departments that are constitutionally mandated to play an oversight on them are not intervening as they do in other smaller municipalities.
“We need a meeting with law enforcement agencies to look into financial misconduct and irregularities in the municipality as there is no clear indication on the consequence management of those implicated.
“The municipality is only informing the Standing Committee that some Deputy Chief Financial Officer and few officials are on suspension and undergoing disciplinary process and that the same bid committees implicated have been reconstituted,” said Hon. Dliso.
He said there is no progress on financial disciplinary cases that have been opened since 2012 at the law enforcement agencies. “There is also overspending on legal fees to discipline financial transgressors yet there is no progress or positive output,” said Hon. Dliso.
Mayor of Rustenburg Local Municipality, Cllr. Mpho Khunou said disciplinary processes have been instituted against officials in the supply chain including the manager who subsequently resigned in January 2020. “All bid committees have been restructured which will be chaired by Directors to ensure a high level of accountability and guidance. Some of the SCM officials are undergoing training at Provincial Treasury,” said Cllr. Khunou.
The Standing Committee and Chairperson of Committees, Hon. Mmoloki Cwaile said it is worrying that there are no consequences on unspent conditional grants and the asset register is incomplete.
The municipality was requested to submit a detailed plan on consequence management on financial misconduct and cases sent to law enforcement agencies for further investigations. The municipality was also asked to submit a comprehensive report on all infrastructure projects including those that are incomplete such as the Rustenburg Rapid Transport projects; fleet services contract and contractors responsible.
The Provincial Public Accounts Committee also lambasted the Department of Cooperative Governance and Human Settlements’ continued absence on meetings. “We have once more sent back Naledi Local Municipality as we are not sure about who is supposed to account. Both departments should’ve attended our meeting so that they can clarity on who is the accounting office in the Naledi Local Municipality.
“Although we have sent numerous letters to the department to seek clarity on the status of administrators sent to municipalities during Section 139 interventions including letters of secondment and remunerations and terms of reference, the department is yet to communicate anything to the Committee hence we can’t interrogate municipal audit reports,” said Hon. Dliso.
Enquiries:
Namhla Luhabe
Deputy Manager - Communications
North West Provincial Legislature
Tel: (018) 392 7000
Cell: 079 527 0628
Fax: 086 695 3784
email: namhla@nwpl.org.za<mailto:namhla@nwpl.org.za
