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The DA in the North West welcomes the arrest of the former Municipal Manager at the Moretele Local Municipality, Mr Theletsi Roger Nkhumise, for allegedly committing tender fraud through contravening the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), costing the taxpayer over R215 million.

Mr Nkhumise stands accused of wrongly, deliberately and unlawfully applying regulation 32 of the Municipal Supply Chain Management Regulations when Moretele inherited ICT services from the Madibeng Local Municipality.

This resulted in Mr Nkhumise extending the original contract without following due process which saw R215,711,00.71 paid to the service provider Flame IT Strategy.

Despite the tender fraud charges that were hanging over his head when Mr Nkumise left the Moretele Local Municipality, the ANC still deemed it fit to redeploy and appoint him as Municipal Manager at Matlosana Local Municipality. This serves as the perfect example of how the ANC’s cadre deployment policy is a cancer to society and vindicates the DA’s attempts in court to have cadre deployment declared unconstitutional.

It is important to note that Mr Nkhumise, who was the Municipal Manager at Matlosana Local Municipality until the end of May 2022, is no stranger to controversy.

A report by the Special Investigations Unit (SIU) into the multi-million-rand PPE corruption scandal, released publicly on the 25th of January 2022, also made a criminal referral to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) against Mr Nkhumise for gross financial misconduct for contravening section 173 and 174 of the MFMA.

After raiding the City of Matlosana municipal offices in December 2020, the SIU found evidence that the municipality overpaid PPE service providers under the watch of Mr Nkhumise. He was then slapped with a final written warning while the criminal referral to the NPA is still pending.

The DA will continue to keep a close eye on the developments of this case, and we look forward to seeing similar arrests taking place. The DA will persist in our efforts to rid government of cadre deployment.

Issued by Freddy Sonakile MPL - Caucus Leader: North West Provincial Legislature