The Democratic Alliance has uncovered a trail of “rot, corruption, and plunder” in the metros it won in the August 3 local government elections, DA leader Mmusi Maimane said on Sunday.
“The ANC’s project of state capture is not just a national government phenomenon. It is not restricted to just [President] Jacob Zuma and his cronies. It permeates throughout every sphere of government,” he told a press conference in Johannesburg.
Among other things, the City of Tshwane government was technically bankrupt when the DA took over, due to irresponsible spending and acts of nepotism by the previous ANC administration, he said.
“So far, we have discovered that the former mayor [Kgosientso] Ramokgopa enjoyed a R30 million per year discretionary slush fund to spend as he pleased on dispensing patronage and handouts as he saw fit.
“In the office of the city manager we inherited a structure inflated and bloated to include four deputy city managers, eight regional executive directors, and their deputies, carrying a salary bill of R96 million a year.
“The former mayor’s office wasted an astronomical R90 million on botched upgrades to the Tshwane City Hall, where corruption and kickbacks in the mayor’s own office have been found and are under investigation by the SAPS after [new DA] Mayor DA fighting the ‘ANC state capture project’ at every sphere of government, says Maimane laid criminal charges,” Maimane said.
“But this all pales in comparison to uncovering the fact that the mayor’s own office was inflated to employ over 900 people, costing almost R250 million a year in salaries. Many of these were political deployees, including active ANC members.”
Since taking over less than 100 days again, the DA administration led by Solly Msimanga had begun to turn the tide of corruption in the city. Lavish catering, banquets, and parties had been stopped to save money for delivery and not for “politicians stomachs”. “We have also rejected luxury cars for politicians. Just before the DA took over Tshwane, the ANC administration purchased 10 new BMWs for politicians and senior officials. Mayor Msimanga immediately redirected these new luxury vehicles to form a new anti-hijack unit in Tshwane which will fight crime on our streets.”
Msimanga had also reconstituted the Tshwane Special Investigating Unit (SIU) which was disempowered and did not operate under the ANC. It now handled all corruption and fraud investigations in the city, reporting directly to the mayor.
The state of the City of Johannesburg was characterised by a historical neglect of the basics of local government. This had resulted in a city with serious backlogs in critical areas central to achieving economic and job growth, Maimane said.
Johannesburg faced massive problems of stagnant economic growth with 30 percent of the population unemployed. The previous administration created a massive backlog in infrastructure development, maintenance, and a R232 billion funding gap to address capital expenditure needs. Rather than addressing priorities, the city focused itself on speculative investments into dubious economic projects such as mushroom farms and solar powered bakeries using imported mango flour. Socio economic problems were massive and hampered by the defunct administration the DA inherited.
“Upon taking office, we have identified 2000 title deeds many of which residents have waited more than 20 years to receive. The city also faces major billing challenges. Residents have to endure endless inefficiency, red-tape, and callous disregard for their billing problems. This has been allowed to develop to the current state of affairs while the previous administration denied any existence of a billing problem.”
The “anti-graft unit” had been rendered ineffective by the ANC and operated with funded vacancies in critical positions for extended periods of time. Countless forensic reports had been received which demonstrated a lack of political will to deal decisively with findings of these reports.
“During the [election] campaign we were consistently challenged to produce evidence of corruption. Now upon taking office we are inundated with cases that were hidden from the public eye. We will be making announcements in respect of these reports, as well as an important announcement on measures we are taking to combat corruption,” he said.
The fact that the annual budget of Nelson Mandela Bay metro was fairly small in comparison to other metros did not stop former mayor Danny Jordaan and his predecessor from “diverting public money for private gain”. When the DA took office, it immediately became apparent that the ANC falsely presented a large cash bank-balance as a solvent position when in fact it had devastatingly cut all city maintenance to instead put money in the bank.
“In the first weeks, we discovered contracts entered into for the supply of light bulbs at R600 per bulb, and a splash-out by the former mayor of R250,000 to get his face onto the front cover of a magazine. We then discovered a contract worth R22 million with Mohlaleng Media which duplicated the work of municipal staff and predictably delivered negligible outcomes. Mayor Athol Trollip immediately froze this contract. Furthermore, we discovered that over R95 million was spent on CCTV cameras for the IPTS project which were never installed and remain locked away on the service provider’s property.”
In the electricity department, five of the six senior managers were left in acting roles for many months, which created instability and uncertainty. This while the infrastructure and engineering directorate itself had over 160 vacancies which were left unfilled and contributed to poor service delivery for the people of Nelson Mandela Bay.
Trollip had begun the work of rolling back decades of financial waste and corrupt financial management by freezing contracts and launching investigations into every instance of suspected corruption.
“This is no doubt just the tip of the iceberg in these metros and we are expecting to uncover many more examples of capture and corruption in the coming months. But let me reiterate my call for all South Africans to not lose hope. We are fighting, and we are winning. The tipping point is fast approaching,” Maimane said.
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