eTHEKWINI ANC councillors have been accused of holding a secret Blocksum Allocation meeting where they unilaterally to a decision to divert public funds for the benefit of individuals. The Democratic Alliance has informed council speaker, Logie Naidoo in writing of the secret meeting and called on Naidoo and mayor James Nxumalo to step in.
According to DA Exco member, Heinz de Boer, Blocksum Allocations are lump sums of money that are allocated to various wards; usually for capital expenditure projects. According to the DA, on Wednesday, ANC councillors excluded all opposition parties from this meeting where they unilaterally took decisions to use Blocksum Allocation to renovate an ANC councillor’s office, upgrade a privately owned hall and build steps in an informal settlement situated on private land.
DA ward 10 councillor Rick Crouch was purposefully excluded from this meeting despite his ward being on the agenda. De Boer said had Crouch been present at the meeting there is no way he would have allowed ANC councillors to redirect public funds for his ward in the manner that they did. Crouch first became aware of the secretive meetings after being sent an SMS indicating that a meeting would take place at the City Hall on Wednesday.
This was followed by another reminder of the meeting. Both SMS messages bore the name of ANC councillor and chief whip Stanley Xulu.
Crouch later received a telephone call from the Xulu’s office telling him to “disregard” the messages and that there was no such meeting. Crouch later discovered that the meeting did take place during which discussions were had on how to spend money allocated to various projects in his ward. “Among these allocations are items which amount to irregular expenditure as it allocates council money for work on and in private properties, also there is an allocation for an upgrade to an ANC councillor’s office. Due to the underhanded secretive way this was handled I am not open to any compromise on any allocations. I am not in agreement with the allocations for Ward 10 and reject all of them outright,” Crouch said.
Acting on this information, de Boer contacted city treasurer Krish Kumar and city manager Sibusiso Sithole who both denied knowing anything about the meeting. Crouch has also yet to receive a response from Naidoo and Nxumalo on the issue.
“It seems that the ANC is again looking for a hiding from the Auditor General’s office. Not only was the meeting conducted in a secretive and underhanded manner, but the allocations were totally irregular,” said de Boer.
