SACP urges councils to table reports

THE South African Communist Party in the province has called on all councils in Eastern Cape municipalities to table and act on numerous forensic reports that for years have been sitting idly “gathering dust”.

The call follows the party’s provincial executive committee meeting held over the weekend and the provincial working committee’s visit to the Skenjana Roji region (BCM).

In a statement released yesterday morning, SACP provincial spokesman Siyabonga Mdodi added the party’s views on the growing calls for the ANC to convene a national consultative conference.

“The PWC re-affirms the central committee position on the need to convene the ANC national consultative conference to deal with the rot in the movement.

“The consultative conference should be inclusive of all the organs of the broad liberation movement [and] should be used as the basis and platform to unify the movement in which we can all reflect upon and take individual and collective responsibility of the mistakes we have committed,” he said.

He also called on the newly established councils to avoid being used to advance “petty squabbles, purging and settling of narrow political scores”.

He said that the councils should rather be used to focus more on improving service delivery.

“As the SACP, we wish to reiterate our call for the tabling and action on all the forensic investigation reports in Eastern Cape municipalities.

“As the SAPC we are on record having called for the tabling and action on these reports [instead of] letting them gather dust without any action,” he said.

Several BCM reports which reflect badly on the running of the city and the way BCM councillors oversee the running of the council have been gathering dust.

These include an MMB Consulting black bags report in May 2013; an Ernst & Young report on the R2-billion 2011 Mad campaign; as well as the report on the son of a senior councillor who admitted to have caused R151 000 worth of damages to a metro-hired Mercedes-Benz C-class.

The Ernst & Young forensic report probed tenders awarded during the tenure of former municipal manager Dr Lulama Zitha.