Treasury losing patience with municipal bosses

The National Treasury has had it with the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality. This is evident from the letter sent from deputy finance minister David Masondo to acting mayor Thsonono Buyeye last week. What makes this latest letter different from the previous back-and-forth communication over the city’s failure to take action against those who have looted public funds meant for the bus system, is that it has now appeared to have caught the attention of the political bosses up in Pretoria.

In the past, the communication has been kept between officials — but it has now reached the point where the Treasury is appealing to the city’s political leadership to step in and, well, show leadership.

Masondo has questioned Buyeye’s decision to appoint housing boss Mvuleni Mapu as acting city manager when he has a litany of disciplinary charges of misconduct hanging over his head.

“The above is highly relevant to the credibility, honesty and conscientiousness of the incumbent to hold such an important position of accounting officer of a municipality,” Masondo wrote.

“It is our belief that if the council gave effect to the [local government] regulations, it would not have appointed the current acting municipal manager.”

What the Treasury thinks of Mapu is relevant because it wants to ensure that before releasing public funds to the city, the custodian of the local public purse is above reproach.

At the moment, it does not believe him to be, and the city thus stands to lose hundreds of millions of rand in annual grants and equitable share.

Needless to say, that would spell absolute disaster for the city, and hit its poorest residents the hardest. It would also stall infrastructure development in the Bay.

Masondo accuses the city of having no appetite to implement consequence management, and correctly so.

His letter should serve as a wake-up call to the bosses at City Hall that there are consequences for heir bad decisions.

Sadly, it is the people of this city who will once again have to bear the brunt of such poor decisions.