OR Tambo district mayor Nomakhosazana Meth welcomed the impending probe by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) into the so-called Mandela funeral scandal.
Presenting her annual state of the district address at the Mthatha Airport yesterday, Meth in fact suggested they were happy that it was happening as it would help bring an end to the saga.
“We owe it to our people and the country to show what happened at the time,” she said.
The Saturday Dispatch reported last week that President Cyril Ramaphosa had signed a proclamation that will allow the SIU to investigate how millions earmarked for the late statesman Nelson Mandela’s memorial services and funeral were spent following his death in 2013.
The order reportedly also seeks to recover losses that may have been suffered following the funeral and memorial services.
The proclamation states that, in terms of section 2(2) of the Special Investigating Unit and Special Tribunals Act, 1996, the SIU is authorised to investigate the provincial planning and treasury department, the Eastern Cape Development Corporation, safety and liaison department, Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency, Buffalo City Metro, OR Tambo district municipality and the Nelson Mandela Metro.
Yesterday, Meth said the SIU probe would dig deeper into what really transpired in 2013.
She went further to state that public protector Busi Mkhwebane’s report on the Mandela funeral scandal, which she issued late last year, had come with some proposed remedial actions. They included that the district authority’s municipal manager conduct an internal investigation which, Meth revealed, had already been done.
“We are excited by the decision so that it deals with uncovering things even where we [district authority] could not see. We don’t go as deep as the SIU will,” she said.
Turning her attention to service delivery matters, Meth told residents, traditional leaders and the hundreds of other guests who attended yesterday’s event that efforts to bring clean drinking water and proper sanitation to thousands of residents across the district were being hampered by a string of litigations and land claims.
She said government had introduced a system of transparency when it came to bidding for tenders. But some service providers, after losing out on lucrative tenders, had taken the district municipality to court arguing they should have been awarded the tenders.
Meanwhile, there was also the issue of land claims, where some property owners were refusing to cede land for water projects. As a result, they had been forced to apply to provincial government to have some land expropriated.
On current water projects, the mayor revealed that phase 3 of the construction of bulk water and a reticulation network to Siphaqeni, Fama, Kwazulu and other villages in Flagstaff was progressing well. It is expected to benefit more than 30000 rural households.
The municipality has also set aside R11-million for a feasibility study on options to supply water to various villages around Ingquza Hill and the Port St Johns local municipalities while the laying of water pipes to distribute water from Mthatha to Mqanduli and its villages was also almost complete.
An amount of R60-million has been set aside in the new financial year for the Libode and Ngqeleni corridor, which will include supplying water to both towns and several villages.
Meth also warned communities that infrastructure costs ran up to millions, revealing that some water schemes had been vandalised.
“We are currently working on a plan to fix the vandalised pipes,” she said. — sikhon@dispatch.co.za..