The Greater Tzaneen Municipality in Limpopo held a corruption summit to warn employees of the cancer. The municipality has been in the spotlight due to corrupt activities by employees in the past.
Some municipal contracts were reversed in court after they were deemed irregular. The municipality hopes that the summit will help curb acts of fraud and corruption.
The Greater Tzaneen Municipality has been highlighted by the Auditor-General as one with escalating trends of unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Spokesperson of the municipality Neville Ndlala admits that corruption cost the municipality money that could have been better spent on improving services for residents. He says some of the contracts were reversed in court.
“The Mulati access road project and the Codesa Hani project where there were acts of fraud, these cases were taken to court and the contract was rendered null and void because of these acts. As a municipality, it also happened in Muhlaba where we had a project, also that project was terminated or rendered null and void by a court of law. This is very costly in terms of finances and also takes a lot of our time and also denies our communities much needed services,” says Ndlala.
Spokesperson for the South African Municipal Workers Union (SAMWU), Moses Malatjie says they welcome the summit by the municipality. Malatjie says they have spoken against maladministration and corruption in Tzaneen before. He says they have in the past also reported cases with the office of the Public Protector.
“In the previous years we have been up in arms as SAMWU Tzaneen, raising issues that are pertaining to corruption in the institution, where in we even took ourselves to the office of the Public Protector to report such incidents which even [up to] today we never had a report. But we believe that if we have this initiative inside the institution, it will assist us,” says Malatjie.
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) councillor at the municipality, Clifford Letsoalo says the municipality does not have the capacity to fight corruption.
“As the EFF in greater Tzaneen, we have been challenging this thing for a very long time, that there is a lot of shenanigans and corruption happening in our municipality. Currently there was a report that rules and regulations of awarding tenders from the SCM were violated, this is the findings from the internal auditing team and is one of the most useless,” says Letsoalo.
Mayor Gerrison Molapisane told the summit that the council is ready to fight corruption and fraud. Molapisane says members of bid committees must award contracts according to municipal specifications.
