Municipality disputes A-G ‘fraud’ findings

THE eThekwini Municipality has disputed that it has the highest number of “fraudulent supplier declarations” in the country after the release of the Auditor-General’s (A-G) report this week.

The report labelled eThekwini as the metro with the highest instances – 377 – of fraudulent supplier declarations submissions.

eThekwini said it wasn’t aware of where these figures were drawn from, and the only report the city considered accurate was one handed to the city by the AG in November last year.

City spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa said: “The Auditor-General-signed Final Management Report and Executive Summary communicated to management on November 26, 2016, does not reflect anywhere the 377 fraudulent declarations.”

Mthethwa described hundreds of cases that were reported to the municipality regarding fraudulent supplier declarations, and how the cases were resolved.

Many of the cases dealt with municipal officials who were directors of boards that had business dealings with the council.

There were also instances of family members of council employees who did business with council.