Master of the Metro
Michael Sutcliffe, eThekwini Metro manager, faces growing questions over his management style and his promotion of procurement practices perceived by his critics as favouring well-connected individuals.
Deals that have raised questions admittedly relate to a small portion of the council’s R3-billion annual procurement budget — but critics, including the Democratic Alliance’s Metro executive committee member Lynn Ploos van Amstel, say they point to the inherent risks of what she describes as Sutcliffe’s ‘centralised and politicised” style of management.
African National Congress leaders counter that Sutcliffe is simply ensuring that the policies of the ruling party are implemented.
No one is accusing Sutcliffe of corruption, but they have accused him of what one senior city manager termed ‘political expedience”.
One example was an attempt, revealed by the Mail & Guardian last year, to conclude an office-rental deal when, as it turned out, the council had under-utilised property of its own.
Interviews by the M&G with some senior council staff suggest that Sutcliffe, himself a prominent ANC member, was open about his desire to stamp a new political direction on the management of the city following his appointment in mid-2002.
Several noted that at his first meeting with his senior managers Sutcliffe introduced them to ANC provincial MP Bheki Cele, who was neither a councillor nor a city official, but instead chaired the ANC’s powerful Durban regional executive committee (REC).
Says one manager who, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity: ‘He made it quite explicit that we were to consider ourselves accountable to that structure [the REC].”
Said another: ‘It was clear that Mike himself was not going to be accountable to Obed Mlaba [eThekwini’s ANC mayor], or even really to the Metro executive committee. He was deployed by the ANC when the city had begun to lose political and administrative direction.”
The manager said Sutcliffe introduced weekly briefings to the ANC REC and liaised closely with key office-bearers, including Cele and regional treasurer John Mchunu.
Sutcliffe has declined to respond to questions from the M&G but Cele, who is now a provincial minister, defended this relationship.
He said it was the case all over the world that administrators interacted with the office-bearers of the ruling party: ‘We have an oversight role, to make sure the policies of the ruling party are implemented.”
Responding to criticism of Sutcliffe’s dominance of the Metro, Cele pointed out that Sutcliffe, not Mlaba, is the city’s accounting officer and thus carries the can for decisions.
Mlaba himself dismissed the idea that he had been sidelined from his role as political leader: ‘Mike is completely accessible to me. I can call him at any time ... Of course we have had disagreements about this or that, but that doesn’t mean he is running his own show.”
He said the council had delegated extensive powers to Sutcliffe in order to promote efficiency and transformation.
However, some officials the M&G spoke to have asked whether efficiency has been achieved at the cost of accountability and have questioned the politicised nature of that transformation.
For instance, it is alleged that one objective for the new management of the city was the reform and redirection of the tendering system.
Managers said Sutcliffe openly questioned why people who had been with the ANC in the struggle had not benefited from empowerment opportunities from the city and several sources claimed Sutcliffe gave the example of Dr Diliza Mji, the former ANC provincial treasurer, as the kind of person he had in mind.
Not long afterwards, Mji’s Remant/Alton consortium won a R1,3-billion contract to take over the running of the city’s bus service, the Durban Metropolitan Transport Board.
Some hailed the deal for the significant stake it gave to transport board employees, but others questioned its rationale, saying the contract retained a significant amount of risk for the city.
Mji, who failed to return calls, is a respected Durban activist-turned-businessman.
Said one manager: ‘Sutcliffe would ask: ‘Where are our own [Durban] Ramaphosas?’ It was well known that he believed there was a need to identify certain individuals who were going to benefit from transformation.”
Says another: ‘Sutcliffe was urging people to start organising themselves to take up the opportunities. Maybe that was not a bad thing, but in practice Sutcliffe doesn’t see beyond the political group to which he belongs, with whom he socialises, does business and so on. If you don’t have the political credentials, you don’t feature.”
One of the managers interviewed said that in late 2002 Sutcliffe and his deputy, Derek Naidoo, had been summoned to a meeting with ANC treasurer general Mendi Msimang at Durban airport. The source said Sutcliffe indicated the discussion with Msimang related to possible opportunities for ANC investment vehicles.
When contacted, Msimang did not deny the meeting took place, but refused to discuss the matter further.
‘Tell me what ANC investment vehicles?” he demanded.
At a broader level, Sutcliffe acted to remove many key procurement decisions from the ambit of the municipal tender board and placed them in the hands of departmental technical committees over whom he exercised closer control.
There was some justification in doing this, one senior manager told the M&G, as the tender committee was slow and by no means immune from manipulation by special interest groups.
But when the pendulum swung the other way, some officials were concerned.
‘Sutcliffe got sweeping authority from the executive committee,” explained one. ‘Line managers were no longer allowed to make their own presentations to the Metro executive committee; everything had to go through Mike or Derek Naidoo.”
Even some ANC councillors reportedly expressed frustration that they were now simply informed of decisions taken elsewhere.
Said one manager: ‘The issue is that when you have just a handful of people who are the only channel through which everything flows, you open yourself up for problems.”
Sutcliffe’s tender troubles mount
Black out
For four weeks the M&G has, in various ways, tried to get comment from eThekwini Metro manager Mike Sutcliffe. He has not responded to attempts to get his side of the story. Sutcliffe’s office said he has decided not to talk to the newspaper.
