North West Provincial Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Premier, Finance, Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs has expressed displeasure with the Ratlou Local Municipality for not taking action against officials implicated in irregular payments of Personal Protective Equipment suppliers.
This follows a report by the Special Investigative Unit (SIU), which was mandated to conduct investigations into allegations and irregular payments of two PPE suppliers at the municipality during the National State of Disaster.
The SIU report found Municipal Manager Tebogo Chanda, Procurement Accountant Mpho Manja and Acting Chief Financial Officer, Moitse Ledingoane, guilty of misconduct for failing to prevent losses by permitting the municipality to procure PPE items at inflated prices.
The officials also failed to ensure that the municipality follows Treasury Regulation Circular 100 regarding the pricing of PPE items and to act with fidelity, honesty, integrity and in the best interest of the municipality in managing its financial resources.
The SIU report, which was sent to the Cooperative Governance, Human Settlements and Traditional Affairs Department, recommended that council must institute disciplinary measures against the implicated individuals.
Committee Chairperson, Aaron Motswana condemned the municipality for failure to act on SIU recommendations and instructed the municipality to include the item on the agenda in the next council sitting, expected to be held before 22 April 2022.
“Why would the municipality fail to implement a directive from the Presidency, as the SIU investigations were commissioned by President Cyril Ramaphosa? The report was not taken for review by all those implicated and therefore, it is unacceptable for the municipality to just sit with it and not implement consequence management.
“Municipal council should also have a clear plan on how to recover the misappropriated funds to the latter. If the municipality has a panel of lawyers on its database, they should be formally asked to charge implicated individuals,” Motswana said.
He said the Municipal Public Accounts Committee would also have to deal with matters of supply chain transgressions.
Motswana added that the municipality should also submit handover report from the previous municipal council to check whether the SIU report was part of its municipal council sittings, and a comprehensive report on the litigation register and how the municipality dealt with closeout reports on Section 139 (1)(b) interventions.
“We also need reports on status of senior managers as there are vacancies; incomplete projects under municipal infrastructure grant from the three previous financial years and how much was spent, as well as service providers involved; irregularities on misuse of petrol cards, and post audit action plan on unauthorised, irregular and fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” the chairperson said.
Cooperative Governance Acting Head of Department, Mamorena Lehoko confirmed that the department reminded the municipality several times about processing the SIU report.
“We wrote several letters to the municipality reminding them to deal with the SIU report at council,” Lehoko said.
Ratlou Local Municipality Mayor, Matlhomola Ronald Jafta said the municipality will table the report in the next council meeting and will work with all stakeholders including the SIU, the committee, and the department to ensure that implicated officials are held accountable.
“We will hold everyone accountable who misused municipal funds, and our mandate is to ensure that there is clean governance and we will protect the interests of our people by delivering services. We have taken note of issues raised and we will comply,” Jafta said.
Source: South African Government News Agency