FURY OVER BCM’S WARD MILLIONS
The money was doled out through the integrated development programme
Millions of rands given to ward councillors of Buffalo City Metro to use for good work in their communities have vanished.
Two well-placed sources in the municipality and a community development worker said complaints had been lodged with council on how the funds were abused by some councillors, suppliers, project managers and service providers.
The money was doled out through the integrated development programme.
Initially R750,000 was paid to individual ward councillors to use at their own discretion, but in the past two years this was increased to R1m.
The sources said: “This thievery is a collaboration between the project managers, supply chain management [SCM] and the suppliers.
“Inspection in loco is not performed by neutral people, if it is performed at all, so there is no way of telling if the entire funds allocated for a particular project are exhausted, or if there was collusion between the parties to inflate prices.
“Last year, we were told to stop disbursing the IDP fund because the budget was exhausted. It was not explained how, because some wards had not been allocated their funds as per their requests.
“This is the money that wards can use for pressing issues they believe need urgent attention.
“For the money to be released, it has to be committed to an order number.
“The project manager from the user department signs the invoices and the SCM unit signs the GRN [goods received note], and then payment is processed without verifying receipt of the procured goods.”
BCM council’s petitions management committee chair and ANC councillor Ncedo Kumbaca confirmed that a number of complaints had been received by his committee in the past year, saying: “Indeed there has been a huge general outcry in many wards concerning the use or misuse of these ward allocations.”
A community development worker in ward 32, Terror Sobende, said he had no updated information about projects under this programme in the ward.
He said there was talk about a ward beautification project but he had heard nothing.
“Sometime last year sports kits were bought for local sport clubs but there is still a fight over those because apparently some were not delivered.
“A driving school to provide driving lessons to local youths did not produce the desired outcome.
“A group of community members requested a chicken project but that request was never given attention.
“These are projects that have potential to uplift the lives of people if they were implemented,” Sobende said.
Ward 32 councillor Vuyani Peter said councillors had little or nothing to do with the procurement of services and products with the ward discretion fund.
He said they received the end product and could not tell whether the product was indeed value for money.
“Under this programme we only submit requests to the Integrated Development Plan [IDP] office which in turn forwards it to the supply chain management office.
“It is this office that sources service providers and carries out the entire process of procuring the product we have requested.
“When it is brought to us we accept what is written on the documents and we have no way of telling whether it is worth the amount on the paper.
“The Municipal Finance Management Act doesn’t allow councillors to get involved in procurement processes so we have no hand in the quality of product delivered,” Peter said.
He said some projects had problems with deliveries but they referred every problem to the IDP office, which in turn addressed them with supply chain.
“We recently had a problem with a supplier who failed to deliver sporting kits for teams around the ward.
“We could not understand what happened and there was nothing we could do except report it to IDP. We are still waiting for the outcome.
“We endure insults from community members when things go wrong. Sometimes these funds are not processed in time and that too is a challenge because it delays the implementation of programmes.
“The municipality needs to tighten the administrative processes and ensure that projects are not delayed,” Peter said.
In May, the Dispatch reported that Duncan Village ward 7 residents had opened a fraud case against their councillor, Clara Yekiso-morolong, for failing to fully account for a BCM grant that was allocated for the betterment of their ward during the 2018-2019 financial year.
In 2020 residents complained to the public protector, making damning allegations against Yekiso-morolong, accusing her of maladministration and a lack of accountability over the R700,000 grant.
Council speaker Humphrey Maxhegwana on Friday confirmed that a number of cases had been reported to council through petitions from concerned residents.
He said the cases had been taken to council and later referred to the metro’s ethics committee.
“Some councillors were suspended over allegations that they had misused these ward allocations, while others were cleared by the ethics committee,” Maxhegwana said.
However, he could not shed more light on the number and names of the affected councillors.
Inspection in loco is not performed by neutral people, if it is performed at all, so there is no way of telling if the entire funds allocated for a particular project are exhausted, or if there was collusion between the parties to inflate prices