Xasa raps Sundays River over tenders
OFFICIALS at the Sundays River Valley Municipality think they are a law unto themselves, flouting tender processes and giving jobs to pals.
This view is contained in Eastern Cape Local Government MEC Fikile Xasa’s scathing investigative report tabled in the council on Thursday.
Xasa said municipal officials had completely disregarded laws guiding local government and conspired with service providers to inflate prices.
His report claimed that Sundays River municipal manager Lonwabo Ngoqo allegedly interfered with tender processes together with his personal assistant.
“Whereas it would be churlish to only hold the accounting officer responsible for approving irregular expenditure initiated by the directors, concern is expressed at the apparent inflation of costs and prices by the preferred service providers,” the report said.
On Friday, Sundays River mayor Jerry Lose said the council had decided to hand over implementation of the report to the district municipality and Xasa’s department so members could avoid being referees themselves.
“We want them to assist us in implementing the recommendations because we . . . need a neutral body to deal with it so that it is done fairly,” he said.
Lose said the report was adopted on Thursday during a special council meeting and further declared a public document, as Xasa recommended.
The MEC said that by not following legislation in writing off irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure Ngoqo committed a crime.
“Non-compliance with Section 62 of the Municipal Finance Management Act is considered as a financial misconduct which, in terms of Section 171, is a criminal offence as per Section 173 of the same act,” Xasa’s report said.
“It is apparent that the deviation policy has been abused and is theoretically irregular expenditure unless condoned by the council. No council resolutions were provided to suggest that the deviations granted by the accounting officer had been submitted to and [were] condoned by the council.”
Lose said the MEC gave the municipality until next month to come up with a plan to stabilise things.
“So far we are in line with the timelines the MEC has given us. We have adopted the report and we have submitted a letter to his office to inform him about our resolutions,” Lose said.
“We are now in a process of drafting a turnaround plan. We are collecting [rates] currently at 51%. We know we are supposed to be collecting more than that.”
Ngoqo said he could not comment on the report.
“There is an implementation plan which will determine a way forward. My employer has to take action and that is when I can engage on the matter. For now I am waiting for them,” he said.