DA NW lodges complaint with Public Protector against Rustenburg Local Municipality
3 September 2019
Today, the Democratic Alliance (DA) North West Spokesperson on Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs (COGHSTA), Freddy Sonakile, along with Rustenburg Local Municipality DA Caucus Chairperson, Pieter Malan and MPAC Member, Luan Snyders, lodged a complaint with the Public Protector, requesting him to investigate allegations of corruption in the Rustenburg Local Municipality (RLM). Click here to see letter of complaint.
This follows a payment of R3.5 million have allegedly been authorised unlawfully by the CFO, Godfrey Ditsele and Deputy CFO, Vivian Mdhluli on 8 August 2019 to an IT company, Electronic Connect for a user license fee before any services had been rendered. Click here and here to see supporting documents.
The license fee was paid for an electronic programme that was to introduce self-service channels to ratepayers in a bid to improve the municipality’s operations to become more efficient, financially viable and more responsive to citizens’ needs.
The Acting Municipal Manager, Edward Komane, allegedly wrote to Electronic Connect on 6 June 2019 to put the Service Level Agreement on hold as part of the review process, but Yondela Roboji, Director of Corporate Services went ahead and signed off a payment approval after which the R3.5 million has been paid.
The contract forms part of the municipality’s infamous R150 million Smart City Tender that is aimed at transforming Rustenburg into a world-class city and ensure sustainable economic activity in the face of a declining Platinum mining sector.
Sadly, this is not the only allegations of misconduct levelled against the municipality.
The DA lodged another complaint for the irregular appointment of AB Scarott Attorneys, who has been selected to serve on the municipality’s legal panel without following due tender processes. Click here to see supporting affidavit.
It is alleged that AB Scarott, a legal firm situated in Sandton, received preference over local firms serving on the panel and receives monthly payments of about R1 million.
From information at hand, it is clear that there is systematic large-scale corruption within the ANC-led municipality by way of the fraudulent tender process. Corruption steals from the people of Rustenburg and denies them the services they are entitled to.
The DA will continue to expose and challenge any form of corruption in our quest to ensure that programmes funded with the people’s money yields the benefit of improved service delivery.
Issued by Freddy Sonakile, DA North West Chief Whip, 3 September 2019
