The ANC’s regional leaders on the West Rand have been accused of pulling the plug on a forensic probe into how a R65-million fleet-management contract was acquired by the Randfontein municipality without following proper procedures.
The vehicles contract was procured by municipal manager, Advocate Nthabiseng Sepanya-Mogale.
Documents in possession of the Mail & Guardian show that this was done “without council resolution” and that Sepanya-Mogale had “no authority and power to unilaterally deviate from council resolutions because council resolutions are instructions to her and only the council may rescind its resolutions”.
Council members told the M&G this week they were baffled as to how the municipal manager managed to escape punishment because she had clearly violated the Municipal Financial Management Act and supply chain management policies.
The fleet management contract is financed by Standard Bank and it is alleged that Sepanya-Mogale acquired the financing without providing the bank with papers showing a council resolution, a transactional advisory report, or the mayor’s signature.
The municipality’s previous five-year fleet management contract was held by Fleet Africa, and cost the municipality just more than R40-million.
Documents show that the council took a resolution on April 29 2011 to put Sepanya-Mogale on “precautionary suspension” for behaving in a “grossly negligent” manner.
The council also took a resolution to appoint auditing firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) to investigate the conduct of the municipal manager.
In a letter dated April 29 2011 and addressed to the auditing firm’s chief investigator, Lionel van Tonder, the current executive mayor Sylvia Thebenare ordered PwC to investigate whether proper procurement processes were followed in terms of the municipality’s supply-chain policy.
The mayor also asked the auditing firm to establish whether a loan agreement between the municipality and Standard Bank had been signed.
“If it has, who signed it and on whose authority?” Thebenare asked in the letter to PwC.
However, Sepanya-Mogale allegedly refused to co-operate with the investigators, verbally abused them and ordered to them to leave the premises.
According to a report by Thebenare, which she sent to the provincial minister for local government, Humphrey Mmemezi, for him to intervene, Sepanya-Mogale complained that “It [PwC] was not neutral, the team met the executive mayor for two hours without her knowledge, the team will never get information from her directorates and the team has no mandate or the right to be in the municipality.”
The M&G understands from sources that shortly after attempts were made to discipline Sepanya-Mogale, the mayor and her council’s chief whip, Jeje Lekgothe, and speaker Elias Khumalo were summoned to a meeting on August 22 in which they were told by the ANC’s regional office bearers to drop the investigation. The council convened a special meeting on September 8 that eventually rescinded the resolution to investigate irregularities surrounding the multimillion-rand fleet-management tender. Sepanya-Mogale’s suspension was also lifted.
Sepanya-Mogale maintained she had done nothing wrong in terms of procurement. “The provincial treasury was approached to find alternative ways of procuring the vehicles,” she told the M&G.
Council members told the M&G this week that the investigation had been put on ice indefinitely and that PwC investigators had been barred from entering the municipality’s premises.
The M&G sent questions to Standard Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers, but both refused to comment due to their “confidentiality” policies.