The ANC in Tshwane yesterday mounted pressure on executive mayor Solly Msimanga to suspend City manager Dr Moeketsi Mosola for allegedly flouting municipal supply chain management processes.
Mosola was implicated in a controversial contract which saw engineering consultancy GladAfrica appointed to assist the City in rolling out infrastructure projects.
ANC regional chairperson Dr Kgosi Maepa called for Mosola to be suspended with immediate effect to allow investigations into alleged corruption to continue unhindered.
The official opposition would press criminal charges against Mosola, Maepa added. He was at pains to demonstrate that the contract between the City and GladAfrica smacked of looting of municipal coffers.
“The contract stipulates GladAfrica has been appointed to oversee a capital budget of approximately R3.7billion in the 2017/2018 financial year with a 10% fee drawn for professional services provided.
“To date since the commencement of the contract approximately R250million worth of fees have been paid by the City towards the Project Management Unit. These are middleman fees GladAfrica had to pay to other contractors on behalf of the City,” Maepa said.
He claimed that the company’s Project Management Unit charged the City “ludicrous fees ranging between R2000 and R4000 per hour which were inflated higher than the regulated rates as issued by Engineering Council of SA.
Regulated rates for professional services ranged between R800 and R1200 per hour, he said. “Taxpayers’ money cannot be siphoned and stolen in this manner without anyone accounting for it,” he said.
Maepa said the party was in possession of evidence that the bulk of the invoices submitted were paid by the Roads and Transport and Housing and Human Settlements departments.
“It appears there is a trio of kleptomaniacs hell-bent on collapsing the finances of the City. The trio is made up Mosola, Sheila Senkubuge (MMC for Roads and Transport) and Mandla Nkomo (MMC for Housing and Human Settlements).
“We want the executive mayor to demonstrate the amount of services and infrastructure delivered for the approximately R250m spent thus far. We also want an itemised breakdown of the amounts paid. Mayor Msimanga must show us what the money delivered for the people of the City.”
He lashed out at Mosola for allegedly intimidating some senior managers to utilise the Project Management Unit or face the music for defiance.
“Mosola is known for his antics of acting like an untouchable accounting officer who can intimidate anybody including his political principals. In one mayoral committee meeting, it is alleged that he threatened to beat up Cilliers Brink (MMC for Human Capital and Shared Services), calling him a small boy. It is this attitude that he is meeting out with this corrupt Project Management Unit contract.”
Maepa said it was untrue that Msimanga didn’t know about the multimillion-rand contract because a monthly report on all contract appointments in excess of R200000 is tabled at the mayoral committee, which he chaired.
Maepa said the party wanted President Cyril Ramaphosa to sign a Special Investigating Unit proclamation for the City from August 2016 to date.
Source: News24
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