Metro back on Kabuso trail
THE Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality is to institute a forensic probe into money paid to housing contractors on behalf of Bhisho in an attempt to recoup tens of millions of rands owed by the provincial government.
The fund works like a credit facility and is used to pay contractors while the municipality waits for payment from Bhisho.
At the end of June, the housing revolving fund stood at R194.39-million.
The metro had locked horns with Bhisho a number of times over the years as the provincial Department of Human Settlements refused to pay back some of the money it owed the metro because of missing documents and projects it had not approved.
The province also complained about houses not built to proper specifications.
Mayor Athol Trollip said on Sunday the previous administration had acted carelessly with public money.
“The implementation of informal systems such as this was done to allow money to move quickly through the metro coffers to its detriment and at the expense of proper service delivery.”
The housing revolving fund has, however, also grown under the current administration – the last report to the budget and treasury committee highlighted that the amount owed to the municipality had risen from R177.94million to R194.39-million between June last year and June this year.
Trollip said: “To determine the exact amount owing, forensic experts will focus on [four] key areas;
“It will need to be established whether a service level agreement exists between the metro and the province, and that it contains clear roles and responsibilities for both spheres of government;
“A comparison of actual cost versus committed cost of approved housing projects, checking alignment with the subsidy paid by the province;
“All related systems and processes, document management and internal controls will be fully assessed; and
“Recommendations will be made to deal with housing delivery challenges using proper and approved accounting systems.”
Trollip’s chief of staff, Kristoff Adelbert, said the current administration wanted to avoid making the same mistakes as its predecessors and that payments from other spheres of government occur when they are meant to.
Provincial Human Settlements spokesman Lwandile Sicwetsha said the department could only comment if the city raised this matter with it.