Councillors found guilty of doing business with the municipality should be fired, says local government specialist Makhosi Khoza.
|||Durban - Councillors found guilty of doing business with the municipality should not have got off lightly with just a fine and should rather have been removed from their positions as councils are empowered to do this.
This was the view of local government specialist and former ANC MPL, Makhosi Khoza, who lamented the sanctions imposed on four ANC councillors named in the damning Manase report for flouting the rules by trading with the municipality.
She argued that these light sentences could be setting a wrong precedent. “Are we saying (as a councillor) I can break the law and the only sanction I am going to get is a fine?”
Speaking during a public debate on the Manase report, Khoza said the council was empowered by the Municipal Systems Act to remove these councillors.
“Yes the Systems Act says the council may impose a fine but it also says the council may request the MEC to remove the councillors,” she said at the debate hosted by the Durban think tank Xubera Institute on Thursday night.
Khoza said the act also empowered the MEC to review sanctions imposed on councillors and where it was felt they were inappropriate.
In the 1990s the eThekwini Municipality had laid charges against one of its councillors and that councillor was later sent to prison, she said without saying what the transgression was.
Khoza, herself a former eThekwini councillor, said the municipality was one of the best success stories that the country had to offer. “But now we are retrogressing at a speed faster than that of light.”
She said it was important that the recommendations in the Manase report were taken seriously. Khoza suggested that the report should be sent to the Public Protector because it was being contested, and to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) at provincial and national government levels.
Former city manager, Mike Sutcliffe, a panellist in the debate, tore into the report. He said that while investigations were good, he had concerns about the manner in which the Manase investigation was conducted and the manner in which the report was handled.
Some of his concerns were that the report was sanitised and those named in the report were severely prejudiced because they were never given a chance to defend themselves.
He said the investigators admitted they did not follow international financial reporting standards and that the report had been prepared “for exclusive administrative use of the department and for their legal advisers”.
He also lambasted the Ngubane report which preceded the Manase investigation as being flawed.
In turn, his criticism of the report drew criticism from some of the members of the public who accused him of insinuating all the reports, including that of the auditor-general, had been wrong and that he felt he was the only one who was correct.
Sutcliffe said it was not his intention to slam all the reports. He said he had accepted the first Ngubane report and the recommendations had been implemented by his administration.
ANC regional chairman, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, said everything said by the A-G should be regarded as the gospel truth.
He said that while irregular expenditure was not corruption, it was a reflection of poor planning.
Dhlomo defended the government’s handling of the report. “We had to respect some of the issues coming out of the report.” He commended the municipality for acting against the ANC councillors who were found guilty of having flouted the rules by trading with the municipality.
SACP provincial secretary, Themba Mthembu, said the Manase report was a reflection of what was happening at other municipalities as well. He questioned why other forensic reports that had been conducted into the affairs of other municipalities, like Msunduzi, had not been released.
Daily News
