Opposition parties in the African National Congress (ANC)-led Bushbuckridge Municipality in Mpumalanga suspect foul play after eleven municipal offices were burnt down. These include finance and internal auditors’ offices. Police took bottles stuffed with cotton wool found in some of the offices for further investigation.
Municipal offices were burnt to ashes and nothing was spared. Documents of service providers were among the information lost in the fire. African People’s Convention Leader Themba Godi suspects foul play.
“We definitely suspect foul play, there is no individual who would come to burn finance offices and internal audit offices. Remember this is audit time where financial statements must be produced, it is very convenient and we have seen it in other areas to burn offices so as to ensure evidence is destroyed so when the auditor general comes in the evidence is destroyed,” says Godi.
The embattled municipality is adamant service delivery will not be affected. It maintains that regional offices will continue to deliver services to the residents of rural Bushbuckridge.
“It will affect services in a sense that there are those people who have brought in their invoices for payments and you find that some may not have been captured as yet and some were already captured, we will also request service providers to resubmit their invoices,” says communications manager of Bushbuckridge Municipality Fhumulani Thovhakale.
A team of investigators has been dispatched to probe the incident. Police have also not ruled out foul play.
“When we went to the scene, we found beer bottles which had cotton which suggested there was foul play and a team which has been set up is there to investigate. We urge anyone with information to come forward,” says Mpumalanga Police spokesperson Col. Donald Mdhluli.
The full extent of the damage caused by the fire is not yet known.
