Workers at the OR Tambo District Municipality in the Eastern Cape have embarked on a protest at the entrance of the municipal premises. They are demanding the suspension of managers and officials who are allegedly implicated in the report on the mismanagement of COVID-19 funds.
The municipality hired accounting consultants to probe allegations of financial mismanagement and irregularities.
The investigators found that the supply chain management at the institution is corrupt with certain managers and officials implicated in the report.
“There are employees who are alleged to have committed fraud within the institution and we’re talking of billions of rand from the public purse but who are still within the municipal premises. Even though the council has taken several resolutions to suspend them but the executive mayor is deliberately defying the council to suspend these people and they are still here, they are still working and they’re continuously signing more documents regarding monies of this municipality.
We’re therefore saying as the principle when someone has committed fraud in this institution, he becomes suspended with immediate effect and an investigation continues while the person is outside the premises,” says one of the protesting workers, Babalwa Nkosiyane.
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