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The DA in Polokwane welcomes the suspension of two senior municipal officials following the forensic investigations by Bowman-Gilfillan.

The Polokwane Council acted against the two officials but we now await action against the remaining implicated officials by the Municipal Manager, Ms. Thuso Nemugumoni, in line with the Systems Act.

The report highlighted, amongst others:

• Verified acts of nepotism in appointments of EPWP workers;
• Verified cases of municipal officials misleading or lying to the Public Protector of South Africa;
• Major irregularities with SCM processes;
• Irregular expenditure of R137 million due to irregular appointment of a service provider who performed a pre-bid-evaluation process;
• Acts of fraud by HR official, altering documents to hide inadequacies;
• Irregularities relating to scoring & interviews in HR department;
• Irregularities in the appointment of Bus Service Provider for Leeto la Polokwane, which could see Polokwane lose a possible R17,8 million as result of pre-payment for buses.
• Possible criminal acts by PMU (Project Management Unit) officials;
• Probability that numerous tenders were awarded irregularly; and
• Numerous contraventions of the MFMA.

The DA has requested full access to the entire report as councillors were only allowed access to a summarised version which was taken back by Municipal Officials due to the sensitive nature thereof.

It is clear that the devil lies in the detail and that access to the full report is required to hold officials and public representatives accountable; something which the ANC executive seems reluctant to do.

Bowman-Gilfillan has also raised other possible red flags that they recommend the Executive Mayor should consider investigating that did not fall within their mandate and current scope of investigations. These include the existence of possible “ghost” employees as well as “allegations against certain councillors”, amongst others.

The DA demands that all officials found guilty of maladministration face the full might of the law and that criminal charges be laid by the Accounting Officer where required according to the recommendations of the Bowman’s report and information at hand.

The DA will be writing to the Speaker of Council, Welhemina Modiba, to request feedback on other pending investigations that need to be submitted to council.

We will closely monitor developments; residents of Polokwane deserve better transparent governance.

Issued by Councillor Jacques Joubert - DA Caucus Leader- Polokwane Local Municipality