Two rural municipalities try to fight fraud

OR Tambo and Ingquza Hill fire and suspend senior officials

A manager of a rural municipality was suspended on Tuesday and another has been fired — both over allegations of maladministration and fraud.

Councillors in OR Tambo district municipality resolved to suspend municipal manager Owen Hlazo while the Ingquza Hill council finalised a decision to fire its accounting officer,

Mluleki Fihlani.

Hlazo was suspended over alleged illegal and questionable payments totalling over R168m to several companies and Amatola Water, which were allegedly made even though some companies had not done any work for the municipality.

Amatola has said the R133m paid to it was above board.

Hlazo had been given until Tuesday to motivate why he should not be suspended. This was after he had initially been slapped with precautionary suspension on June 17 before it was rescinded on Friday.

Council then resolved to suspend him after he failed to meet the Tuesday deadline.

Contacted for comment, Hlazo said only: “My attorneys are dealing with the matter so I would not like to comment for now.”

Police are investigating charges of fraud, theft and corruption against him.

Several attempts to source comment from speaker Xolile Nkompela and mayor Thokozile Sokanyile were unsuccessful as their phones rang unanswered.

But opposition parties confirmed Hlazo’s suspension. DA caucus leader Sithembiso Mabasa said his party voted against it because it was “clearly not about fighting corruption and maladministration but about ANC factional battles”.

UDM chief whip Mncedisi Bunzana agreed.

“Even though we can see there are political motives at play we voted for his suspension because municipal funds were wasted so we want the allegations to be investigated.”

Ingquza Hill is bracing for a legal battle with Fihlani, who was fired on June 9. The Lusikisiki-based local authority is considering offering him a golden handshake.

His axing comes after a disciplinary process that has taken over a year and cost the struggling rural municipality at least R3.2m in legal fees.

He was charged with failing to implementing council resolutions, submitting fraudulent petrol claims and wrongly authorising payment to a service provider hours after he had been suspended on February 12 2019.

Mayor Bambezakhe Goya confirmed Fihlani’s firing.

“The disciplinary committee (DC) was constituted but he frustrated the process by continuously asking for documents not readily available leading to postponements.

“I am told the DC then continued without him and he was found guilty after testimonies from witnesses.

“When he was reappointed in 2017 he was instructed to submit fresh copies of his qualifications and was given three months but he never did that,” Goysa said.

“So we felt if they were lost he should have had copies by now but he never submitted them,” he said.

Fihlani could not be contacted at the time of writing.

Asked why they were looking for an out-of-court settlement if Fihlani had been found guilty in a fair disciplinary hearing, Goya said: “That is informed by trying to avoid a drawn-out court case that might cost us more money.”