NDZ must account to Parliament over Covid-19 relief spending by municipalities

6 July 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) will request that the Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs ensure the Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA), Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, gives account on how the R20 billion Covid-19 relief funding has been administered and spent by municipalities.

Since the start of the Covid-19 lockdown and the announcement of the Covid-19 relief stimulus to help municipalities weather the storm, there has been concerns that the money would not reach the intended targets and be used to line the pockets of corrupt politicians. These fears are increasingly becoming a reality.

Last week a report by the Auditor-General of South Africa (AG), Kimi Makwetu, revealed that only 8% of municipalities received a clean audit. In most of the municipalities that did not receive a clean audit, there were gross mismanagement of funds and indications of looting and corruption. It does not take much of an imagination to see the R2 billion in relief funding for municipalities disappearing down the same drain.

In just the past few weeks the following allegations of gross and brazen financial mismanagement have come to light:

The Chris Hani District Municipality has been accused of paying an inflated amount of money for personal protective equipment (PPE). The owner of the company, IC Bane Trading, is said to be politically connected and charged the municipality R175 per 500ml bottle of sanitizer and R50 a piece for surgical face masks.

R4.8 million was paid by the OR Tambo District Municipality to Phathilizwi Training Institution for a door-to-door Covid-19 awareness campaign. It has emerged that many of the names which appeared on the community workers’ forms, did not receive any Covid-related information.

The Ngaka Modiri Molema District Municipality has come under fire for allegedly forking out R90 million in Covid-19 expenditure. Questions have been raised over whether the municipality paid inflated prices.

The Dr Beyers Naude Local Municipality which was awarded R30 million in drought relief funding during the 2018/2019 financial year, however, can only account for R5 million of the grant. The remaining R25 million has disappeared from the municipality’s coffers without any explanation.

On 23 March President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that the National Prosecuting Authority’s (NPA) would establish special Covid-19 anti-corruption units to expedite the prosecution and sentencing of those who are involved in corrupt activities related to the Covid-19 crisis. To date not another word has been said about these units. It is becoming more and more evident that these units are desperately needed if any of the Covid-19 relief measures are to make a dent in the crisis we are facing.

It is time that the National Director of Public Prosecutions (NDPP), Shamila Batohi, gives clarity on whether these units have indeed been established and are actively investigating the escalating looting of Covid-19 funds.

The DA has previously called on Finance Minister, Tito Mboweni, to create a Special Inspector-General in the National Treasury to prevent and investigate corruption related to Covid-19 funding. Our very reasonable suggestion seems to have fallen on deaf ears.

There seems to be little appetite on the part of government to address the unabated Covid-19 looting spree currently taking place at municipalities across the country. It is for this reason that the DA believes that Minister Dlmini-Zuma must account to Parliament. If the Executive is reluctant to address the looting, the Parliament will force them to take action.

Unless Government urgently creates a stopgap, the Covid-19 stimulus package meant to save lives and livelihoods will be nothing but a free-for-all buffet where stomach politics will reign supreme once again, and vulnerable and desperate citizens will be left out in the cold.

Issued by Haniff Hoosen, DA Shadow Minister of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, 6 July 2020