Chikane stern on City Power corruption
STEPS to root out officials within City Power who have been implicated in corrupt and fraudulent activities will be taken, the entity’s chairperson of the board, Reverend Frank Chikane, has warned.
He said action against individuals found to be on the wrong side of the law would be at the enterprise’s expense.
Speaking at the City Power headquarters yesterday, Chikane said the utility was plagued by opportunistic criminal activities in management systems that were not strong, and thus made it easy for crime to take place.
“In some instances, people make sure that the systems don’t work so that they can commit fraudulent activities,” said Chikane while addressing the media.
He spoke against the backdrop of Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba ordering an investigation into some of the entity’s multibillionrand tenders.
Earlier in the week, Mashaba announced that Anthony Still, a member of his mayoral committee, would be replaced by Nico de Jager after a disagreement about investigating two senior officials. He said they could not agree on an approach on how to deal with alleged corruption at City Power.
Still said the mayor’s accusation that he was standing in the way of fighting corruption was not true.
He said he stood behind Mashaba all the way in his attempts to root out corruption.
Meanwhile, Chikane described the allegations that were levelled against his wife Kagiso as unfounded and malicious. This was after a letter forwarded to South African Municipal Workers Union (Samwu) officials accused City Power director Sicelo Xulu of approving a tender for scientific and industrial research in favour of Chikane’s wife.
Chikane said he would be taking those responsible for the allegations to court if they failed to make a public apology by Monday.
“They really want to maliciously damage my integrity, and that is why I decided last week that I am not going to allow this.
“Frank Chikane is a fighter against corruption. I have never been involved and I will never be involved in corruption. If I was involved in corruption, I would be costing my family its security. We even lost a valuable staff member as well,” he said.
He said that last year, he spoke to Samwu’s managing director regarding the letter, and the union had failed to provide evidence of corrupt behaviour.
“Now it has been repeated in a letter with Samwu’s letterhead,” he said.