A woman carries her child across sewage in Duduza, Tembisa, in Gauteng. Oupa Nkosi, M&G
As investigators descended on the Ekurhuleni metro council in Gauteng to probe alleged corruption, including a waste management contract worth millions of rands, political infighting in the metro reached fever pitch with the dissolution of the ANC’s regional committee.
Last week a group of forensic investigators and forensic accountants, lawyers, cyber-forensics and data analysis specialists from the special investigation unit (SIU) started poring through municipal records in an investigation of alleged tender-rigging and financial mismanagement.
The Mail & Guardian has learned that the investigation will centre on alleged corruption in the council’s environmental development department in the awarding of waste management contracts last year, said to be worth about R850-million.
The waste management contracts, awarded to different contractors to clean the streets of Tembisa, Vosloorus, Tskanane, Daveyton and other settlements, have raised red flags in the metro and there have been calls throughout the year for the contracts to be probed.
The SIU investigation
Constant complaints about the metro’s waste management and alleged irregularities in its IT department prompted a preliminary investigation by the municipality itself, which resulted in the SIU being called in. President Jacob Zuma signed a special proclamation authorising the SIU probe last week.
Ekurhuleni spokesperson Zweli Dlamini said a memorandum of understanding was signed between the parties to allow the investigation to begin.
”A lot of ground has been covered to date and the investigation is now at an advanced stage. The police are also involved,” Dlamini said.
Investigative work started in earnest last year, he said. However, in March this year the council, working with the SIU, started preparing the request for the presidential proclamation.
The official terms of reference include the investigation of procurement processes, mismanagement, misspending and the misappropriation of the municipality’s money and assets.
Workers who lost their jobs when their community-based waste removal project, Tembisa Waste Workers, lost a contract to clean up Tembisa, also requested the public protector to investigate the awarding of the contract.
The SIU had confirmed that the investigation had ”high priority”. Possible tender-rigging and financial mismanagement over the period from January 1 2007 until last week would be examined, according to Zuma’s proclamation.
But the SIU said that events that took place before 2007 could also be investigated if they were linked to the period under review.
Political snake pit?
Some senior African National Congress (ANC) members allege that the emerging scandal over corruption in the metro is intimately connected with political infighting in the ANC’s Ekurhuleni region, recently highlighted by the disbanding of the party’s regional committee.
The official reason for the dissolution is that the committee had become dysfunctional and that the redeployment of Ekurhuleni mayor and regional chair Ntombi Mekgwe to the Gauteng legislature to serve as Gauteng health minister was the ideal moment for the move.
An interim committee has since been formed.
But four senior sources in the ANC in the region told the M&G that the battle over corruption was the real motive.
”The committee was dissolved to clip the wings of regional secretary Bobo Moekona, who has become an outspoken critic of corruption in the ANC in the metro. It was the ideal opportunity,” the senior source alleged. ”It’s to protect its interests.”
Mokoena’s faction claims to have the support of important ANC branches and grassroots members. Mokoena declined to comment on the faction fighting and his alleged crusade against corruption.
Ekurhuleni’s new mayor is Mondli Gungubele, an ANC provincial executive member and former Gauteng sports minister, who is said to be a close confidant of ANC Gauteng provincial leader Paul Mashatile.
The source alleged that the faction that holds power in the metro, because it has Mashatile’s backing, has benefited from the waste management tender contracts.
However, another ANC official sympathetic to the Mashatile grouping said that those pointing fingers about alleged corruption were a tiny component of the ANC in the municipality that could not even be regarded as a faction.
”It suits them to allege that the corruption that the SIU is investigating be linked to supporters of Mashatile,” he said. ”There is no merit to this claim.”
Nkenke Kekana, the head of the ANC’s communication team in Gauteng, said he was not aware of any faction fighting in the province and that the committee was disbanded because it was not functioning properly.
”Our branches begged us to dissolve it,” he said. ”We hope that the interim committee will stabilise the metro.”
He said that the province welcomed any investigation aimed at rooting out graft, no matter who was involved.
”The investigation will go a long way to cleaning up Ekurhuleni,” he said. ”Allegations can fly, but only investigations can reveal the truth.”
The waste management tender
Documentation relating to the waste management tender, which the M&G has seen, raises serious questions. Most of the contracts were awarded to companies with strong ANC links.
In one case a contractor’s name was added to the short list after it was drawn up and the contractor won the tender. One source asked why the tender, which was advertised almost two years ago, was awarded only in the middle of last year.
Dlamini said the metro welcomed the investigation by the SIU.
He said the municipality could not divulge details of the issues under investigation as it might jeopardise the probe.
”The investigation taking place presently started under the watch of Mekgwe, and the present executive mayor, Gungubele, remains committed to ensuring that the process is successfully concluded,” he said.
A wider crackdown
The probe into alleged tender-rigging and mismanagement in the Ekurhuleni council is part of a wider official crackdown on metropolitan municipalities ahead of the municipal local elections.
Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality is included in last week’s presidential proclamation, which gives Willie Hofmeyr’s special investigative unit the go-ahead to move into the East Rand metro.
The Tshwane investigation covered the same period as the Ekurhuleni probe — from January 1 2007 until last week — and will probe allegations of irregular appointment of personnel, mismanagement, wastefulness, the mismanagement of finances and interference in disciplinary affairs.
Tshwane’s new mayor, Kgosientso Ramokgopa, revealed on Monday that 15 Tshwane officials had been implicated in a corruption report and were likely to be suspended. They will be investigated for alleged conflict of interest, including the irregular awarding of tenders.
More officials could be suspended as the SIU begins its work in the metro, city officials warned.
The SIU investigation in Tshwane began with a report compiled by advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza focusing on allegations against former municipal manager Kiba Kekana. Kekana was suspended in October last year on charges of misconduct and maladministration.
The Mercury also reported allegations by eThekwini municipal manager Mike Sutcliffe this week that 20 councillors in the Durban metro had flouted the law by not declaring their business interests, following an investigation by the metro. The interests included doing business with the council.
The list includes 15 councillors from the ANC, two from the Democratic Alliance (DA) and one each from the Independent Democrats (ID), Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) and the Azanian People’s Organisation (Azapo).
The probe was conducted after several requests by the municipality for councillors to disclose their business interests.