‘Zero tolerance’ warns mayor
The Greater Tzaneen Municipality (GTM) mayor, Gerson Molapisane, says the local government institution will have zero tolerance for corruption.
The mayor indicated this during an interview on a local radio station on Monday evening. He was talking after an anti-corruption workshop was held last Tuesday at Karibu Leisure Resort and attended by GTM employees and councillors.
“As a municipality, we saw a need to capacitate the new council and officials about corruption. We invited stakeholders such as the Hawks, Coghsta, and the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) to teach us about the dangers of corruption and how to deal with such situations in the future.
“After this workshop, we don’t expect any member of council to be involved in corrupt activities, everyone has been given the necessary information on what to do and what not to do,” he explained.
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Molapisane pleaded with the community not to associate the new council with the previous council’s mistakes, but to give them a chance to deliver services to the people. However, not everyone is convinced that the workshop will bare fruit. Followers of GTM’s Facebook page showed a lack of confidence and trust after a post about the workshop was posted to their page.
“You will need to dissolve the whole supply chain team to fight corruption in the GTM. I have been knocking on doors for RFQs (request for quote) opportunities at the municipality for seven years, without any invitation to bid for a tender.
The supply chain teams are always telling me that they don’t have any RFQs.
That is corruption at the highest level,” Mpho MK stated. Vho Ramabulana commented that the workshop should have been conducted at a community hall, “you are wasting money on resorts while there is no service delivery to the people”.
In 2018, the former mayor, Maripe Mangena, launched a 24-hour toll-free anti-corruption hotline. At the time Maripe said that residents must report corrupt municipal officials and politicians regardless of their positions. The hotline is still in operation but it is unknown how many calls were received and acted upon. To report any corrupt activities call 0800 44 66 44.
