COUNCILLORS were prevented from looking at a forensic audit report dealing with the alleged unlawful awarding of a R31-million tender by the city manager, Kaya Ngema, at a special council meeting on Thursday.
The Gobodo report was only made available to the speaker, executive mayor, chairman of MPAC and the city manager as the “leadership of the municipality”.
The decision not to make the report available to all councillors came from the chairman of the audit committee, J Lekgetha.
In a memorandum to the Speaker, Patricia Khumalo, Lekgetha said: “The distribution of the report presents a legal risk to the municipality in that persons whose names are listed in the report may institute legal proceedings against the municipality for the disclosure of a report which they have not been given a copy of and have also not been given an opportunity to respond to”.
Izak Berg, national chairman of the Independent Ratepayers Association of SA (IRASA), said: “The Gobodo report was already handed to the Audit Committee on June 17 and now that councillors want to look at the report and its findings, these excuses are brought.”
He said councillors were informed on Monday about the special council meeting where the report would be tabled so councillors could familiarise themselves with it before the scheduled council meeting on August 28.
“However, upon arriving at the meeting parties were divided into different groups and our group (minority parties) was informed by the executive mayor, Clr Mondli Gungubele, that they had a legal opinion and a request from Lekgetha why councillors should not be allowed to look at the report and its findings.
“It is strange that this ‘legal opinion’, as the mayor called it, comes from the same department who informed Ngema not to proceed with the appointment of QBIT, which he ignored, which lead to this report.
Berg said Ngema’s appointment of Gobodo needs to be questioned as he made use of their services before where he was implicated.
“One would like to see what are the recommendations from Gobodo about the payout of R6 million made to QBIT for work not done while it was approved by a senior official of the metro.
Berg said the ANC in Ekurhuleni did not have the political backing or capability in dealing with fraud and corruption in Ekurhuleni.
Council took a resolution on January 31, 2013, requesting Ngema to forward the appointment of QBIT to the Special Investigation Unit to investigate the appointment as a matter of urgency.
Ngema appointed QBIT against the advice of the Corporate and Legal Department of the Ekurhuleni Municipality.
Ngema ignored this instruction and appointed Gobodo Forensic and Investigative Accounting to do the investigation without informing council until the investigation was completed, which is a violation of a council discussion, Berg said.
At the last council meeting in July the ANC, through the chief whip, withdrew this item, which would have given all political parties the opportunity in debating this issue, Berg said.
Earlier this week the DA in Ekurhuleni has called on Gungubele to suspend Ngema until the findings of a Special Investigations Unit (SIU) investigation into the alleged irregular awarding of the tender were made known.
