In what has been a shocking climb-down the Buffalo City Metro (BCM) has opted to ignore a damning forensic report about tenders and let implicated officials off the hook.
Senior politicians in the BCM, who were implicated in a probe into the R1-billion “MAD” campaign, have been cleared of wrongdoing.
Two senior officials – Vuyo Zambodla and Wendy Galada – have already been hauled before the courts.
The case against Zambodla has since been dropped while Galada’s fraud trial has been dragging.
Galada and 12 co-accused – along with three business entities – face up to 24 charges of fraud, corruption and organised crime related to special projects put out to tender ahead of the 2010 World Cup.
The Ernst and Young report has, however, been gathering dust at the office of executive mayor Zukiswa Ncitha for more than three years. At a council meeting at the Abbottsford Christian Centre on Wednesday, ANC councillor Pat Naicker tabled a motion that none of the implicated councillors be held liable.
A source within the ANC caucus said an earlier report into the 2012 black bag scandal, where millions were paid out to a company before the contract between BCM and service providers were signed, was rescinded by council. The feeling is that if that report was set aside, why not the Ernst and Young report.
“The fact of the matter is that findings of these reports implicated different factions within the council. So to be fair to everyone, it made sense to shelve all the reports,” said the source, who was part of the ANC caucus.
“Even if the region had a view on this one, but the fact that it allowed the black bags saga of 2012 to slip away, it made no sense to insist that a 2010 report be effected.”
The motion was made behind closed doors. The ANC and PAC voted in favour of the motion while the DA and African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) opposed it.
The Saturday Dispatch understands that Badenhorst tried to raise a point of order during Wednesday’s meeting, but was overruled by council speaker Luleka Simon-Ndzele and “a shouting match broke out”.
Badenhorst was apparently trying to raise the issue that he was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Councillors, who spoke to the Saturday Dispatch on condition of anonymity, said they were “shocked” when Naicker rose and suddenly announced that the matter had gone on for too long and that people were entitled to swift justice.
“It was not expected that the ANC would just throw the report out,” said one.
Ncitha refused to comment on the matter. “I do not discuss confidential items. I am bound by pink . I can’t comment.”
Badenhorst would only say briefly: “I am so angry . I don’t want to talk about it.”
DA caucus leader Lance Weyer would not comment on what was discussed, but said: “The DA is unhappy with the manner in which the ANC is using confidentiality to hide accountability.”
The MAD campaign was the brainchild of Zitha, whose aim was to spend within three months to avoid underspending the city’s budget. However, the forensic investigations highlighted a number of gross irregularities, including:
lR53-million wasteful expenditure was incurred during the construction of the West Bank restitution project;
lSupply chain management authorised a R30-million tender to a company without authority to do; and
lA multimillion-rand engineering contract tender was extended without council mandate.
ANC Buffalo City regional secretary Pumlani Mkolo said their deployees in council were not briefed on how to handle the matter.
“In this case our deployees handled the matter the best way they knew how. We don’t have to brief the caucus on how to handle every item on the council agenda. This one included,” said Mkolo.
The big tender let-off
Senior politicians in the BCM, who were implicated in a probe into the R1-billion “MAD” campaign, have been cleared of wrongdoing.
Two senior officials – Vuyo Zambodla and Wendy Galada – have already been hauled before the courts.
The case against Zambodla has since been dropped while Galada’s fraud trial has been dragging.
Galada and 12 co-accused – along with three business entities – face up to 24 charges of fraud, corruption and organised crime related to special projects put out to tender ahead of the 2010 World Cup.
The Ernst and Young report has, however, been gathering dust at the office of executive mayor Zukiswa Ncitha for more than three years. At a council meeting at the Abbottsford Christian Centre on Wednesday, ANC councillor Pat Naicker tabled a motion that none of the implicated councillors be held liable.
A source within the ANC caucus said an earlier report into the 2012 black bag scandal, where millions were paid out to a company before the contract between BCM and service providers were signed, was rescinded by council. The feeling is that if that report was set aside, why not the Ernst and Young report.
“The fact of the matter is that findings of these reports implicated different factions within the council. So to be fair to everyone, it made sense to shelve all the reports,” said the source, who was part of the ANC caucus.
“Even if the region had a view on this one, but the fact that it allowed the black bags saga of 2012 to slip away, it made no sense to insist that a 2010 report be effected.”
The motion was made behind closed doors. The ANC and PAC voted in favour of the motion while the DA and African Christian Democratic Party (ACDP) opposed it.
The Saturday Dispatch understands that Badenhorst tried to raise a point of order during Wednesday’s meeting, but was overruled by council speaker Luleka Simon-Ndzele and “a shouting match broke out”.
Badenhorst was apparently trying to raise the issue that he was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Councillors, who spoke to the Saturday Dispatch on condition of anonymity, said they were “shocked” when Naicker rose and suddenly announced that the matter had gone on for too long and that people were entitled to swift justice.
“It was not expected that the ANC would just throw the report out,” said one.
Ncitha refused to comment on the matter. “I do not discuss confidential items. I am bound by pink . I can’t comment.”
Badenhorst would only say briefly: “I am so angry . I don’t want to talk about it.”
DA caucus leader Lance Weyer would not comment on what was discussed, but said: “The DA is unhappy with the manner in which the ANC is using confidentiality to hide accountability.”
The MAD campaign was the brainchild of Zitha, whose aim was to spend within three months to avoid underspending the city’s budget. However, the forensic investigations highlighted a number of gross irregularities, including:
lR53-million wasteful expenditure was incurred during the construction of the West Bank restitution project;
lSupply chain management authorised a R30-million tender to a company without authority to do; and
lA multimillion-rand engineering contract tender was extended without council mandate.
ANC Buffalo City regional secretary Pumlani Mkolo said their deployees in council were not briefed on how to handle the matter.
“In this case our deployees handled the matter the best way they knew how. We don’t have to brief the caucus on how to handle every item on the council agenda. This one included,” said Mkolo.
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