Security costs metro millions

It has cost ratepayers about R1m a month for security at the Motherwell NU29 housing project since December 2015.

This was meant to prevent theft at the housing site, but the unfinished houses have been vandalised during that period and building materials stolen.

The Nelson Mandela Bay municipality forked out R300,000 a month for three years to guard the Daleview housing project and R250,000 for the last six months to secure a Khayamnandi housing site.

But its astronomical extra security costs did not stop there. The city paid R250,000 a month to guard an Addo Road container for two months in 2018 and R300,000 to secure the Bloemendaal overhead electricity lines since November 2017.

City manager Johann Mettler revealed the figures on Wednesday after his report to the municipal public accounts committee recommended the city write off R26m in unauthorised expenditure.

The expenditure was incurred as a result of the metro spending more than its allocated budget for security since 2014 as well as its continued use of private security firms.

In November, the council took a decision to absorb about 460 security guards who were employed by private security companies contracted to the city.

This exercise was meant to save the city money but instead its costs have been ballooning.

The municipality reported it has had to rely on private companies to secure some sites on an ad hoc basis because it does not have enough security.

Budget and treasury head Retief Odendaal on Wednesday said: “Unfortunately the process was not managed by our executive directors and we have allowed private security to snowball over the years.”

He said officials discovered they needed additional security, while the budget was insufficient.

“Myself and the then acting chief financial officer [Barbara de Scande] must take responsibility for this.

“We wanted to prevent these companies from [gaining] too much money from the institution.

“We wanted the executive directors to manage the situation but unfortunately it did not happen – they exceeded their budget and as a result it became unauthorised expenditure,” Odendaal said.

“This is a problem. There was a political decision that was taken that we will not have private security and that is why there hasn’t been a formal tender that has gone out.”

Public accounts committee chair Yoliswa Yako said the money the committee was required to write off was simply too much.

“Is this amount ongoing? Are we still paying monies even now and can we expect to have to write off more amounts?” Yako said.

EFF councillor Zilindile Vena asked that an investigation be launched into why the process of absorbing contract security had been delayed.

“We agreed on this in March last year. Just because there was no interest in this, people delayed it further.”

Vena asked that the matter be deferred to the public accounts subcommittee.

EFF councillor Lukhanyo Mrara said it was wrong that the two companies were still being paid.

“When we said that we want these security guards to be insourced we wanted the budget that goes to these companies to go directly to the security guards; that was our stance,” Mrara said.

“It’s wrong that we have to write off irregular expenditure when we said let us do away with these companies. We need more information.”

Mrara said safety and security political head John Best was dragging his feet.

ANC councillor Ncediso Captain said the safety and security department also needed to answer.

“[It] needs to give us an explanation about what is happening here.

“One way or another, we need to implement the council resolution or the city manager needs to explain to us why it has not been implemented,” Captain said.