Call on MEC to intervene

MAILE MUST BREAK UP ‘CARTEL’ OF CORRUPTION AT EMFULENI MUNICIPALITY

Whistle-blowers fired as those implicated are protected.

Gauteng MEC for human settlements, urban planning and cooperative governance and traditional affairs Lebogang Maile has been asked to intervene in the “systemic corruption” at Emfuleni local municipality.

The ANC Youth League (ANCYL) in Sedibeng has given the MEC until today to intervene.

Its coordinator Jabu Maitse said Emfuleni was a classic example of how taxpayers’ money was wasted on corruption investigations with no one arrested or fired.

“There has been no corrective measures despite various interventions,” he said. “You have a situation where it has become a cartel protecting each other.

“Corruption there is systemic, involves many people [and] goes higher up.”

In a letter to Maile, he said the rot had reached a level prohibiting the state capacity to effectively render services.

He lamented the lack of action against implicated individuals, despite forensic investigations, recommendations and charges.

“It appears that prominent people implicated are protected… Individuals implicated due of lack of accountability are allegedly purging anyone invoking or seen to be invoking long-standing consequence management,” he wrote.

In 2018, The Citizen reported the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation was circling five senior officials in connection with R872 million that went missing from the municipality, but Maitse said nothing had come of it.

Elsje Oosthuizen, chief executive of Comperio Consulting, the forensic investigation firm appointed to probe irregular expenditure, previously revealed how the municipal manager had hindered the process of dealing with those implicated in irregular expenditure of more than R670 million and the recovery of over R106 million.

Municipal manager Lucky Leseane recently tabled a report that led to the suspension of chief financial officer Andile Dyakala, who blew the whistle on the irregular awarding of a R57 million contract by Leseane.

Maitse said there was no doubt Dyakala was being targeted but nothing had been done about Leseane failing to produce a copy of his matric certificate.

The auditor-general (AG) will be investigating Dyakala’s claims concerning the awarding of an insurance brokerage contract, said Nerosen Venketsamy, senior manager in the Gauteng office of the AG. –