The municipal manager and the chief financial of the Elias Motsoaledi municipality in Groblersdal, Limpopo, have been placed under precautionary suspension in relation to the VBS saga.
The municipal manager, Minah Maredi and CFO George Mmapheto have been given seven days to furnish the municipal council with the reasons on why they shouldn’t be suspended. The municipal council has also instituted an internal investigation against the officials.
Some opposition parties EFF and DA walked out of the council sitting. They were unhappy about the decisions to suspend the officials on a precautionary instead of immediate suspension.
“We never agree with these people that’s why we are leaving we don’t have time we’re not happy as EFF we want them to suspend the mm and the CFO with immediately effect,” says EFF councilor, Collen Shai.
DA councilor Johan Coetzee has also expressed unhappiness about the resolution to institute internal investigations against the officials implicated in the VBS saga.
“We’ve got a problem with the establishment of the board we said that the board must be an independent board appointed not the internal officials of the municipality the speaker of the council never asked for the seconder of that proposal they just went on and accept what they propose that’s why we left the council early before it has been closed.”
Another opposition, Bolsheviks Party, says it’s not possible for the senior managers to be investigated by their juniors.
The party leader Seun Mogotji says, “I’m disappointed because the junior managers are investigating the senior managers that’s the problem you cannot bite the hand that gives you food and that committee won’t come out with anything and now they want to do it internally and they don’t have capacity this matter has been sitting in this council for almost donkey years.”
Mogotji also says the mayor, Julia Mathebe, should also be suspended.
“There’s no way that the CFO and the municipal manager can decide without consulting the mayor now for actually exonerating this thing it’s constituting nothing.”
Mayor Mathebe however says her fate will be determined by the provincial Treasury investigations.
” I cannot venture into that space in relation to Christmas or no Christmas the province has appointed the investigating team that would at the end of the day it will tell exactly what might have happened without our knowledge.”
Meanwhile, the suspended officials have been given seven working days to indicate why they shouldn’t be suspended.
