Mayor denies any part in garbage graft
● Embattled eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede has denied being involved in corruption and pointed the finger at her co-accused in a bid to save her job.
The Sunday Times can reveal that Gumede, during a meeting with senior ANC leaders in KwaZulu-Natal last Sunday, apparently blamed councillor Mondli Mthembu and the municipality’s deputy head of strategic & new developments, Robert Abbu, for tender irregularities that led to her arrest.
Gumede appeared in the Durban specialised commercial court on charges including fraud and corruption earlier this month.
ANC KwaZulu-Natal provincial secretary Mdumiseni Ntuli confirmed that the party’s executive had met Gumede and received a report highlighting “her version of what happened”.
“The mayor gave us a long report about what happened. Her version of what happened in the municipality was that it was due to administrative processes that did not involve her. She said she was not involved,” Ntuli said.
“She said she was shocked when the police arrested her. We wanted to be more informed in terms of what happened. There were certain aspects we felt she did not respond adequately to and [we] have called for a follow-up discussion.”
He said the executive would determine Gumede’s fate only once that discussion was complete. The party would announce its actions, if any, before she reappears in court in August.
Other leaders who attended the meeting said Gumede absolved herself of any wrongdoing. They confirmed that she had said the web of corruption surround- ing a multimillion-rand Durban Solid Waste contract — the focus of the investigation of her — was as a result of “administration processes” that she was not aware of.
Abbu stands accused of flouting procurement processes when contracting four service providers — a job previously done by more than two dozen entities — to collect the city’s refuse in 2016.
The project, worth about R45m for three months of work, ballooned exponentially and the city was slapped with a R130m bill from the suppliers after six months.
Gumede apparently assured her political leaders that as a mayor, she was not allowed to be involved in tender specification and procurement processes.
She is said to have argued that because the city’s procurement structures — like its bid adjudication committee and bid specification committee — had approved the deal, she believed correct processes were followed. But Gumede is accused of using her political influence to infiltrate these structures, overseeing the appointment of cronies to the municipality’s executive committee and supply chain management divisions, among others.
A second meeting between Gumede and the ANC leaders is set down for this week.