City’s orange bag saga drags on
THE eThekwini Municipality’s orange bag saga continues, despite the arrests of people fingered in the multimillion-rand tender fraud allegedly connected to the supply of the bags.
Those arrested include former mayor Zandile Gumede, several other city officials and those who were awarded the tenders.
While there have been further delays in the fraud and corruption case against Gumede and her co-accused, problems in the distribution of the orange bags and waste removal continue to be a problem.
Some residents and opposition parties complained that the orange bags were not being distributed adequately, and that paper and cardboard waste, which are to be disposed of using the orange bags, was not being collected.
While opposition members of the eThekwini executive committee are calling for urgent intervention and the appointment of a competent private company to do the job, without political interference, residents said they were caught in the middle between politics and service delivery.
Akesh Teeruth, a member of the Phoenix ratepayers’ association, said residents had no option but to dispose of recyclable material with other waste.
Sanjiv Sewparsad of Malvern said the orange bag saga continued to affect residents, who were putting paper, plastic and cardboard together with other material in the black plastic bags to be collected.
Gumede is currently out on R50 000 bail relating to a Durban Solid Waste (DSW) tender corruption case.
She is accused of unduly influencing the awarding of a R208 million DSW contract awarded in 2008, which included supply of the orange bags.
Recently, the prosecution revealed that the State had found new evidence which increases the total amount involved in fraud and corruption to R389m.
Yesterday, Gumede and her co-accused, Mondli Mthembu, DSW deputy head Robert Abbu, the city’s supply chain manager Sandile Ngcobo and several service providers appeared in the Durban Commercial Crimes Court.
The case was adjourned again to April 16 to allow the State to conclude its investigations, which include analysis of cellphone evidence, bank statements and laptops.
Meanwhile, speaking to her supporters outside the court, Gumede taunted the NPA, saying she still did not know why it dragged her and her co-accused to court in the first place.
An emotional Gumede, who admitted she had been hurt by being in court, said she was “showing a brave face as a child of God,” adding that the NPA was fumbling and even giving her and her legal team different versions about the details of the case.
“That’s why I am saying they themselves have no idea why we have come to court. They said we want six months (to conclude the investigations) and then they turn around and say after three months we must have a meeting… They (NPA) said they needed three more months from now so that they can scrutinise our bank statements… They also want to scrutinise our cellphone records, which are about 4 000 pages. They are just scrambling; they don’t know what to do,” Gumede claimed.
“Once you start fighting for a black person to at least get crumbs (of the country’s wealth), you are gone in South Africa,” she said.