City suspends senior official over R1.3 billion MTC Broadband investigation
21 July 2017
A senior official from the Department of Economic Development has been suspended pending a disciplinary hearing into allegations of misconduct relating to contracts and payments linked to the Johannesburg Broadband Network Project made by the Metropolitan Trading Company (MTC).
The official in question has already been implicated in an independent forensic investigation which recommends corrective action be taken.
In addition he is seen to be deliberately frustrating an investigation into the City’s seemingly inexplicable R1.3 billion acquisition of the 900km broadband network in 2015. This acquisition was done through MTC, a Municipal Owned Entity, which possessed no viable business plan nor had requisite capacity to run a broadband operation of this size.
The suspended official refused to allow investigators access to a number of devices which are believed to contain crucial information relating to the investigation.