R66m down a substation drain
Mashaba’s probe ‘uncovers’ huge fraud in Joburg
A medium-sized face-brick building seems to be the only thing to show for the R66-million the City of Joburg spent in two years towards building an electricity substation.
This despite the city settling regular monthly invoices – 28 in total – sometimes amounting to R6-million – for work to upgrade a substation to serve parts of Eldorado Park, south of Johannesburg.
When Sowetan visited the site yesterday, only the building stood complete and concrete and sand were scattered in the seemingly deserted site.
Today, the community of Eldorado Park is expected to hold a mass meeting on the site to demand answers from the city on the project which has been in the pipeline for years.
The project is one of the cases uncovered by the city’s internal investigations unit, established by mayor Herman Mashaba in November last year, in an effort to rid the metro of fraud, corruption and maladministration.
The unit’s spokesman Lucky Sindane said two project managers at City Power have been suspended after approving and signing off invoices for the project. Sindane said the two were now facing internal disciplinary action.
“The unit has uncovered cases of fraud and corruption amounting to R15-billion. We have 2 000 cases under investigation,” Sindane said.
He said a company called Setheo Engineering was awarded a R125-million tender to upgrade the substation in Eldorado Park.
Sindane said the city only uncovered the irregularities on the project when the 2016 budget was being reviewed.
“When the mayor visited the area during service delivery protests [earlier this year], he was also told about the city’s delays in building the substation,” Sindane said.
He said they established that despite regular invoices being settled “no work had been done. The company only started doing some work once the mayor had taken various stakeholders, including local councillors, to the area.”
The project’s recently fired community liaison officer Errol Jacobs said a total of 79 locals, mainly youth, were appointed to the project in 2015.
Jacobs said four transformers, which were apparently bought “from overseas”, were delivered on the site in April this year. When asked about work that had been done on the project, Jacobs said: “A new building was put up and the main contractor went overseas to buy transformers which I hear cost R10-million.
“I think the problem could be that they may have quoted work they haven’t done.”
Jacobs said he was fired for having allowed the city’s forensic investigators onto the site last week.
Setheo Engineering’s Tinashe Mangwana and Nomathemba Precious Ncube are both out on R20 000 bail after appearing in the Johannesburg Commercial Crimes Court on this matter.
They are expected to appear again later this month.
‘ ‘ They may have quoted work they haven’t done