Under his watch, outgoing acting municipal manager Fezekile Mphako had started dismantling the culture of impunity by instituting disciplinary processes against alleged wrongdoers in OR Tambo district municipality.
Mphako also roped in APC Consulting to conduct a forensic investigation after council resolved in June that allegations of corruption, fraud and maladministration should be investigated.
APC has completed phase one of the probe, which focused on alleged irregular and advance payments to several private companies and the state water authority, Amatola Water. The report was tabled in council on September 9. The firm was given a further three weeks to finish phase two: investigating Covid-19 expenditure.
This was how Mphako detailed his two months and two weeks at the helm when he submitted his exit report to council on Saturday.
Mphako asked to step down from the hot seat last Thursday, saying he wanted to focus on his studies.
He was appointed on June 30 after municipal manager Owen Hlazo was suspended on June 17 amid a litany of allegations, including allegedly authorising more than R168m in payments to companies that have done no work.
Hlazo has denied any wrongdoing but the municipality has filed a fraud complaint with police in Mthatha.
Mphako will go back to his corporate services director job, meaning the provincial government intervention that mayor Thokozile Sokanyile requested from co-operative governance & traditional affairs MEC Xolile Nqatha will now be implemented.
However, Nqatha's spokesperson, Makhaya Komisa, told DispatchLIVE on Tuesday they were still waiting for correspondence from the municipality about Saturday's council resolution requesting the secondment of an acting municipal manager.
In his exit report, Mphako said they were co-operating with the special investigating unit (SIU), which is investigating R4.8m invoices for a door-to-door Covid-19 campaign, as well as R3.5m in invoices for IDP roadshows invoices and other coronavirus expenditure.
“The unit has been on site in the municipality on almost a daily basis since August 6. The unit is at the stage of collecting the information they are going to use in the said investigation.
“On September 17 and 18 the unit confiscated 27 laptops from officials of the district municipality,” he wrote.
On the pending disciplinary processes, Mphako said he had written to the senior officials implicated in the APC report, asking them to motivate why they should not be suspended.
“You signed an approval of a payment document without even checking whether work was done or goods delivered,” he wrote to the implicated officials, adding they would also face the music for an advance payment to Amatola Water.
The letters, dated September 15, give project management unit (PMU) and engineering services general manager Ntombohlanga Tshicilela, PMU manager Mawethu Mtengwana, water services director Andile Vellem, and project manager Monwabisi Mgqibi two days to motivate why they should not be suspended.
However, Tshicilela, Mtengwana and Mgqibi wrote back requesting “a seven-day period to respond to the letter as it requires ... a detailed response which I cannot meaningfully achieve within 48 hours.”
OR Tambo had paid East London-based company Ruwacon R12.6m, but the APC forensic investigation found the money was actually paid to Amatola Water.
Amatola Water was supposed to pay an advance to Ruwacon for materials, but did not. Amatola Water spokesperson Nosisa Sogayise is on record saying the amount would still be paid to Ruwacon.
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