EFF Tshwane leader Obakeng Ramabodu. Picture: Jacques Naude/African News Agency (ANA)
Pretoria - The EFF in Tshwane wants a special council sitting to be convened with a view to discussing the auditor-general’s adverse audit opinion on the metro and to table a motion of no confidence against mayor Randall Williams.
Regional party leader Obakeng Ramabodu said the EFF also wanted the Gauteng provincial government to intervene in the running of the municipality’s affairs.
“We want to ask for a special sitting to discuss the report and to reiterate our call for mayor Randall to be taken out by a motion of no confidence,” he said.
He believed the EFF was vindicated regarding its criticism that the DA-led multiparty coalition government had run the municipality into the ground.
“This city is on auto-pilot. It has collapsed. The provincial government must intervene in the event the council fails to hold this government accountable,” Ramabodu said.
According to him, the coalition partners such as ActionSA, Freedom front Plus, DA and Cope were likely to use their majority in council to protect each other.
“We want the provincial government to be on standby so that they intervene in case the multiparty partners use their majority, it can step in,” he said.
The EFF called for a lifestyle audit of supply chain management officials and councillors implicated in the report, which suggested that they benefited illegally from contracts awarded by the city. The party will also hand over the report to its legal team to look into the possibility of people being arrested and prosecuted for their role in looting city finances.
The Republican Conference of Tshwane, on the other hand, said the adverse findings were “an indictment on the mismanagement of the peoples’ money by the coalition government for which no degree of spin-doctoring will suffice”.
Party councillor Lex Middelberg said: “What is, moreover, truly astonishing is the extent of the regression of the financial management by the coalition government since they were sworn into office during November 2021. It is a regression that would in normal circumstances in a real democracy have had the mayor, Randall Williams and his MMC for finance Peter Sutton tender their respective resignations with immediate effect. As much as they might try to pin the blame on the CFO alone they are, in the final analysis, responsible to the residents for this fiasco.”
Middelberg said the financials failed to disclose R900 million of long-term liabilities that were repayable in the 12 months following the date of reporting.
“This must be added to the R11.6 billion of unpaid creditors to be carried over into the new financial year. This failure means that the amount provided for in the next financial year’s budget is out by a further R900 million,” he said.
The municipality came under scrutiny for not correctly accounting for unauthorised expenditure incurred in the current year as required by section 125(2)(d) of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA), resulting in unauthorised expenditure being understated by R646 593 600.There was also no adequate system for identifying and disclosing all irregular expenditure incurred, as required by the act.
Part of the report flagged the city for not correctly valuing assets relating to electricity, roads, and stormwater infrastructure, as well as community in accordance with the Standards of Generally Recognised Accounting Practice (GRAP).
“This resulted in infrastructure: assets under construction being understated and depreciation being overstated by R2 165 599 021,” the audit report read.
Former ANC Tshwane regional chairperson Kgosi Maepa criticised the DA-led coalition for having taken the city’s financials back 15 years, saying the ANC was vindicated for saying the DA has completely damaged Tshwane.
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