Money flows down the gutter

LYDENBURG – Various companies allegedly still in the habit of trying to milk the municipality for thousands of rand for alleged bogus services.

Moketja Trading issued Thaba Chweu Municipality (TCM) with an invoice for R71 700 for maintenance work at the unused Mashishing Clinic, which included planting a new garden, cleaning gutters, cutting and planting grass and gardening services in general.

Steelburger/Lydenburg News was eager to see what had been done. Expecting to see a luxurious garden, we found a neglected mealie field instead.

Two struggling rose bushes were covered in weeds, grass was competing with paper thorn for a place in the sun and gutters sported plants as high as 30 centimetres.

The journalist phoned the number on the invoice and left a message on Tuesday. On Wednesday morning a woman, who introduced herself only as Constance, showed up at the newspaper’s office.

When asked on which date her company had serviced the clinic, she said she couldn’t remember, contacted one of her employees to assist and left. She returned shortly afterwards, providing what she said was her real logo, saying someone must have used her company’s name on the invoice. Upon comparison, however, and even though the logos differed, the bank details and registration number were exactly the same.

Later two more quotations surfaced. A company quoted TCM for servicing the hostels in Mashishing, which included cleaning the whole area, planting grass, removing weeds and shrubs and fixing loose paving.

TCM would be set back some R134 400 for alleged material used, and for the supposed garden services this company quoted R95 000.

The newspaper phoned Muluandry Trading and was told that the relevant person, Mr Peter Mahlangu, was in hospital and the query would be forwarded to him.

The municipality was asked when these areas had apparently been cleaned and who had authorised the work. Steelburger/Lydenburg News also pointed out that the quotations and invoice amounted to more than R300 000 and asked whether this was the standard fee for garden services.

TCM was also asked whether the cleaning of the clinic building or the proposed cleaning of the hostels could not have been done internally for a fraction of the cost. Mr Godfrey Nkosi, acting municipal manager, said these accounts had not been paid.

“These services took place before the intervention. The cleaning of the town will be done by the extended public works programme. We are doing it ourselves with our own employees.”

He stipulated that basic services should be performed by the municipality itself and such invoices should be checked. “We need to ask if this service was necessary. I can confirm that the invoices have not been honoured.”

DA’s Cllr Farhad Essack stated that this yet again displayed the irresponsible actions of individuals and the flawed supply chain-management processes, resulting in the loss of millions of rand of taxpayers’ money.

“This is a perfect example of how the connected would get richer while the poor get poorer.”