Mayor ‘goes on ANC manifesto jol’
The Eastern Cape delegation was invited by the deputy minister of agriculture to school activities in Kwazulu-natal
Senior executives of the dysfunctional King Sabata Dalindyebo local municipality — with the assistance of the deputy minister of agriculture, rural development and land reform, Nokuzola Capa — spent R183 997.82 to attend the ANC’S February elections manifesto launch.
The municipal funds were used for party political work after a letter dated 25 January, which Capa wrote to the Eastern Cape municipality’s mayor, Nyaniso Nelani, said the government identified schools every year to form part of its “backto-school” programme.
Capa said she was inviting Nelani and a delegation from the municipality to attend school programmes in ethekiwni in Kwazulu-natal “from 22 to 25 February 2024”.
Three high-ranking officials in the municipality, who did not want to be named, said the agricultural department did not have a back-to-school activity that week, and that the invitation was a ruse for public money to be used to fund the mayor and two other members of Nelani’s mayoral committee to travel to the ANC launch.
Nelani was accompanied by the member of the mayoral committee for infrastructure, Ziyanda Nokayi, and human settlements and disaster management MMC Nombulelo Sibeko, as well as four staff members from their respective offices, according to municipal documents.
The dates chosen for the alleged back-to-school programme fell within the ANC’S manifesto weekend in Kwazulu-natal, on 24 and 25 February.
A breakdown of spending from municipal records shows that the budget for Nelani and the four staff members was R124 327.82, while R59 370.36 was set aside for Nokayi and Sibeko, bringing the expenditure to R183 997.82.
Ironically, President Cyril Ramaphosa, when delivering the election manifesto in his capacity as ANC leader, railed against what he called “mistakes” made by the party, and spoke of “some members and leaders undermining institutions of the democratic state and advancing selfish personal interests”.
Capa had written that the school activity was to “plough back to [ethekwini] communities by assisting the learners and improving the conditions of the school environment”.
The letter did not detail which schools would be assisted and how.
“The schools we visit as [the] government are those that are mostly in remote areas and very impoverished,” wrote Capa.
She said the mayor had to respond to the invitation by 5 February.
What followed was a raft of approvals for the trip, which were signed by the mayor (Nelani) and Fudumele Jiholo, the municipality’s chief financial officer. The services of Swift Travel and Tours were used to organise the trip.
The three high-ranking officials said the senior executives did not attend any back-to-school activity, but wanted to use municipal money for the ANC jaunt.
“What kind of back-to-school activity happens in February when schools reopened in January?” asked the one official.
The Mail & Guardian sent questions to Capa on Tuesday but she had not responded by the time of publication, despite repeated calls and text messages requesting comment, including on Thursday.
King Sabata Dalindyebo council spokesperson Olwethu Mabovula, who also speaks for the mayor, acknowledged all questions on Tuesday and asked to respond on Thursday. But Mabovula had also not responded at the time of publication.
Another source said the mayor and municipal manager were avoiding Mabovula because they did not know how to respond.
“The municipality gets away with a lot without media scrutiny. That is why they are bold enough to abuse state funds because they are not used to being accountable,” the municipal insider added.
King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality is known for its poor auditor general reports, having repeatedly received bad audit findings in successive years.
This includes the irregular expenditure of R1.3 billion in the 2022-23 financial year.
“The accountability and consequence [management] has been ineffective as a result of [the] municipal public accounts committees’ failure to investigate and close the irregular expenditure presented to them,” according to the auditor general’s report.
Moreover, in November last year the auditor general’s office, in its Municipal Finance Management Act compliance findings for the Eastern Cape, flagged King Sabata Dalindyebo local municipality for an estimated loss of more than R39.1 million by the end of June 2023, being salaries for councillors who had not been reelected after the November 2021 local government elections.
The auditor general said certain municipal employees — without naming them or stating how many they were — had illegally used public funds for their personal benefit without any consequences.
“Employees received both the housing and rental allowance from July 2019 to June 2022 in contravention of the municipal policy.
“Another MI [material irregularity] related to the municipality paying former councillors’ salaries after their term of office had ended and were not reelected,” the report noted.
“A legal consultation by the basic conditions committee with regard to the prospects or processes to recover the money is underway. The councillors who did not make arrangements to pay back the money were handed over to a debt collector.”
Despite the many failures in the Eastern Cape, the ANC in the province is hoping to gain votes on election day, 29 May.
Buffalo City was the only metropolitan municipality in the country where the ANC’S votes increased, going from 60% in 2016 to 61% in 2021.
This was while the province had the indignity of 12300 pit latrines, the second-highest number in the country after Kwazulu-natal, according to data from Statistics South Africa.
The province’s shambolic municipalities were further highlighted in an internal audit report dated January 2023 on the Alfred Nzo district municipality, which found that it incurred nearly R26 million in irregular expenditure for a water supply project in the Ntabankulu area.
It has not been confirmed whether the project was completed.
According to the report, Alfred Nzo district municipality awarded the tender to Nageni Civils.
But “characteristics of fraud” were found in the report submitted to the company.
It added that services bids from two companies that unsuccessfully tendered for the contract — SSR Security CC, trading as Mahlubi Transport and Plant Hire, and Imvu Construction Group — submitted lower bids prices during the open application of R22.4 million and R24.1 million, respectively.
“In the examination of the submitted report … we noted characteristics of fraud,” the internal audit report stated.
King Sabata Dalindyebo municipality is known for its poor auditor general reports