Marion Edmunds
CONSULTANTS Eugene Nyati and Ntsoaki Mohapi have made the Mpumalanga government look stupid — not only by doing its work faster and better, but also by showing up the provincial government’s carelessness with taxpayers’ money.
This week, as the Nyati scandal in Mpumalanga came to a head, the auditor-general’s office decided to release a special report on government consultants three months early, in November instead of next January, to tighten up on the use of consultants.
And suggesting culpability — or at least negligence — on the part of Mpumalanga’s cabinet, it emerged this week that Mpumalanga consultants were left to set their own salaries, calculate their own hours of work and subcontract as they wished. Mohapi, a consultant in two Mpumalanga commissions, was able to draw two salaries at once.
Deputy Auditor-General Professor Bertie Loots said this week that millions of rands of taxpayers’ money was spent on consultants this year, and by releasing a performance audit on consultants early, his office wanted to encourage government to establish proper management and auditing controls.
It is clear from what has emerged over the last three weeks that, in the case of Mpumalanga government at least, those controls are missing.
The debacle has also revealed a bizarre dependence by the politicians on consultants. It is ironic that a consultant employed by premier Mathews Phosa, his special advisor Brian Shrosbree, is sorting out the Nyati mess in Phosa’s absence.
Phosa is in the United States to collect an honorary
The MEC for Environmental Affairs, DS Mkhwanazi, told the Mail & Guardian that the April appointment of Nyati and Mohapi — at a joint R244 520.13 — to chair an investigation into the restructuring of parks boards was “worth every cent” because in six weeks they had resolved problems that had beset his department for 18 months.
But Mkhwanazi could not explain how the consultants’ fees were set, how much was paid per hour, what proportion if any was for travelling and expenses and exactly how many hours the commission sat.
Not much has been made of the large salaries paid to the two consultants on the first commission, nor were questions asked when they were almost immediately appointed to chair a second commission, this time into the restructuring of the development corporations which had been inherited by the Mpumalanga government.
The payment to Nyati and Mohapi for work on this commission appears to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, with Nyati taking the headlines.
While senior politicians are scrabbling to make head and tail of his accounts, Mohapi, the chair of the commission, has been largely overlooked.
The Mail & Guardian discovered this week that Mohapi collected payment for sitting on both commissions — R96 000 for the first and, after intervention by Shrosbree, a scaled-down R124 000 for the second — as well as drawing a salary as a full-time employee of a computer hardware company, TAS, in Johannesburg.
A spokesman from TAS said this week that the company had been shocked to learn that Mohapi had pocketed money from the Mpuma-langa government, while she was still getting a salary from them.
“By rights, that money should come to us, but we are not going to chase it,” said the spokesman.
No-one seems able to explain how it is that a 25-year- old BA graduate got to be the chair of one crucial commission and the vice-chair of another.
Mkhwanazi said that her appointment had been a cabinet decision, but would not reveal who had motivated her
Admittedly, her CV is impressive and she has held down 10 jobs and completed a three-year degree in the United States in the space of seven years, but she has not yet earned herself a reputation as Nyati has, nor, according to people who have worked with her, has she the authority or knowledge or political acumen necessary to take on such responsiblity.
ANC chief whip Philip Radebe said nobody quite knew who had paid money into Mohapi’s account in the first place and that it was a grey area that still had to be