eThekwini meltdown is of national significance
The release of the key findings and recommendations of the Manase Report yesterday has lifted the lid on a corruption scandal of unprecedented size and scope, involving nearly every senior politician and council official in the ANC run eThekwini Metro (see report).
The Democratic Alliance will not allow this matter to rest. Our colleagues in the provincial legislatures and in Parliament will urgently work for the amendment of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) to ban officials from having business interests in companies that benefit from government contracts, at any level. The ANC has long resisted such a ban, which is already in effect in the Western Cape, but after the Manase report, they can no longer do so.
I have also today written an urgent note to President Zuma, asking him to address this critical collapse of accountability mechanisms in his State of the Nation Address tomorrow evening. The President must explain the recent meltdown in provincial and local governments across South Africa. The Limpopo provincial government has been bankrupted by corruption and maladministration, and has had to be placed under administration. So too with several departments in the Free State, and numerous local governments across the country, all ANC-run. Now, an entire Metro is in crisis.
According to the report, the eThekwini Metro is rotten to the core, with R1.3 billion over-expenditure attributable to wide scale corruption, tender fraud, maladministration, and inappropriate business dealings. The report fingers the former mayor, the former municipal manager, numerous current department heads and nearly two thirds of councillors.
eThekwini has been turned into a slush fund for well-placed ANC politicians and deployed ANC officials. It is the inevitable result of a system of cadre deployment which conveniently links the ANC in government and the ANC in business, resulting in endemic corruption and the theft of public assets.
Our DA team in Kwa-Zulu Natal, led by our Provincial Leader Sizwe Mchunu MPL and eThekwini caucus leader Tex Collins, will ensure that there is full accountability for those involved, and that the public see the full truth.
The full Manase Report has yet to be made public. The Democratic Alliance calls on the Council to do so without delay, so that South Africa can see the truth of how the ANC has allowed an entire Metro to be run as a personal slush fund.
Our colleagues in eThekwini will ensure that the Council complies with the recommendations of the report. If it does not, the DA will consider laying charges against all of the individuals involved.
The meltdown in eThekwini is of national significance, and must be addressed by national legislation to stop it from ever happening again. President Zuma must explain how this was allowed to happen with the ANC at the helm, and what he is going to do to make it impossible in the future.
Statement issued by Helen Zille, Leader of the Democratic Alliance, February 8 2012
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