Our broken political system based on corruption has produced yet another example of how there is just absolutely no accountability and no consequence for corruption and wasting of taxpayer money.
In this case, Moeketsi Mosola, City Manager of Tshwane, gets to ride off into the sunset with a nice golden handshake, a cool R7 million.
The DA has just reached a separation deal with Mosola but neglected to publicly state exactly how much Mosola’s golden handshake will be. The Citizen newspaper subsequently reported he will be paid out for the remainder of his 5 year term. He has only completed about half of the term so far.
To refresh everyone’s memory, Mosola entered into a contract with a third party middleman consultancy company called GladAfrica in November 2017. The contract was to oversee and appoint subcontractors for infrastructure projects for the City of Tshwane worth R12 Billion. Take note GladAfrica is a so called project management company, so they dont do any work themselves, they appoint others to do the real job.
When the GladAfrica tender was first broken by the Sunday Times – one of the few stories they actually got right – it was reported that GladAfrica was going to take 10% of the value of the contracts it is involved in. That alone is R1,2 Billion for GladAfrica in consultancy fees. It was also reported that GladAfrica would be paid between R2000 and R4000 per hour for GladAfrica personnel working on the project.
It became widely known that Mosola was appointed by Solly Msimanga, previous mayor of Tshwane , in January 2017 on the insistence of the EFF as a precondition for supporting the DA in the council.
It also became known that Mosola was not on the shortlist of candidates for City Manager but that Solly Msimanga tore up the shortlist and said he needed to bring in someone from the outside. What he never said was that the EFF forced him into apppointing Mosola.
When the scandal around GladAfrica broke , the DA eventually conducted an independent probe into the awarding of the GladAfrica tender through attorneys Bowman-Gilfillian which found the tender was awarded illegally. The DA tried to suspend Mosola but was prevented from doing so by both the EFF and ANC.
The EFF evenly called for a motion of no confidence against the DA in council on 2 occassions because the DA wanted to suspend Mosola, strenghtening suspicions that Mosola was an EFF trojan horse and that the EFF is benefitting financially through the GladAfrica tender.
The ANC’s conduct was puzzling, they complained about GladAfrica corruption, yet they assisted the EFF in protecting Mosola.
The Auditor-General also declared the GladAfrica tender illegal and irregular.
New Tshwane mayor Stevens Mokgalapa ended the GladAfrica tender by mutual consent – a negotiated solution – in February 2019 – at a time GladAfrica already fleeced R500 million from the ratepayers of Tshwane. It was not an immediate ending of the contract as it was agreed that the tender would run until June this year by which time another R250 million would be spent, bringing the total thrown down the toilet to an astonishing R750 million, whilst the people staying in Tshwane has almost nothing to show for it..
If there is one lesson the DA should learn from this whole sorry saga, it is that you never make deals in backrooms with the EFF. It is bound to end in the looting of funds and will drag the DA down to the level of the EFF as the DA’s name was badly tainted as a result of this epsode.
To sum up : R750 million is gone and Mosola leaves with a golden handshake. The DA should hang their heads in shame. It could have been prevented if the DA did not make secret deals with the EFF.
Citizen newspaper also reported that the sweatheart deal reached with Mosola even included that the Bowman- ilfillian investigation into the awarding of the illegal tender will be forgotten and that no further steps will be taken against Mosola in future.
Methinks Mosola knows things that the DA would prefer to keep secret.
