Endumeni Municipality gets placed under administration

THE embattled Endumeni Local Municipality (Dundee) has been placed under administration after a report in October by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) revealed that senior officials and a councillor were involved in fraud, corruption, maladministration, and irregular, unauthorised and fruitless expenditure.

The report emanated from the Mdledle Incorporated forensic investigation into maladministration at the municipality.

Yesterday, the department said the beleaguered municipality was placed under administration in terms of Section 139 (1) (b) of the Constitution.

In a statement yesterday, Cogta MEC Nomusa Dube-Ncube said the council had been embroiled in internal strife which saw the entity go without a mayor and speaker for a “considerable” period of time.

She said the October report implicated some of the most senior elected leaders and appointed officials at the municipality.

The council was given 21 days within which to process the report and advise the MEC of remedial action to be taken. To date there was no response and the report appeared to have gone missing, she said.

Cogta had supplied another copy to the council, which was expected to speed up the opening of criminal cases against all those implicated. The council was also expected to fast-track the disciplinary process and usher in a new era of good and clean governance.

“We are implementing this intervention because we want to see positive change in the lives of the people and how this municipality is governed. Nothing will change unless all those implicated in the corrupt dealings that have crippled this municipality are arrested and barred from dealing with public money,” Dube-Ncube said.

She said the administrator would be announced soon.

The Mdledle investigation exposed payments to individuals disguised as donations to religious organisations, which were found to be non-existent, and payments made to business entities to purchase equipment in contravention of the municipality’s own policies.

Other issues highlighted were fraudulent subsistence and travel claims, the irregular appointment of service providers, and excessive and irregular expenditure on security services.

Former Endumeni mayor Siboniso Mbatha said the move was Dube-Ncube’s attempt to wrestle the municipality from the IFP.

He said no action was taken against wrongdoing during the ANC’s tenure at the municipality.

“Around 2014/15, the ANC was in charge of the municipality and during that time R7.1 million for the municipal infrastructure grant was returned to Cogta and nothing was done to those responsible,” Mbatha said.

The DA’s Ifri Bedassi said he hoped the administrator would implement remedial action.