NELSPRUIT – A municipal manager previously found guilty of sexual harassment is now serving in the Mpumalanga Provincial Legislature.
The office of the speaker confirmed this week that Mr George Mthimunye has been appointed as executive manager of corporate services. He was found guilty of sexual harassment while he was municipal manager at Dr JS Moroka Municipality. He resigned in 2003, after an administration clerk accused him of sexual harassment and sued him in the Northern Gauteng High Court.
The court ordered both the municipality and Mthimunye to pay her millions in damages. It was also reported that the municipality paid the complainant’s legal and counselling costs as well as Mthimunye’s legal costs.
Afterwards, he was appointed at the Naledi Municipality in the North West and subsequently suspended for allegedly artificially inflating tenders and awarding them without following the proper procedures. Last year he was suspended from Emalahleni Municipality when it was placed under administration in April.
Mr James Masango, chief whip of the official opposition in legislature, said Mthimunye’s redeployment has exposed the hypocrisy of the ANC in Mpumalanga. “It is a sad day indeed for our democratic order that a person of Mthimunye’s controversial stature should be given this appointment, and the ripples will be felt for many years to come.”
He said the Mpumalanga legislature should be beyond reproach as an institution of accountability and oversight and should not be turned into a dumping ground for failed officials. “All it shows is that a comrade, no matter how bad he is, or how much damage he has done, can simply be redeployed after spending nearly a year on suspension, without any consequences.”
COPE accused the premier, Mr David Mabuza, of not doing enough to hold municipal managers and mayors of poorly performing municipalities to account. Mr Sizile Ndlovu, the party’s provincial premier candidate, said the administrators who had been appointed in various municipalities and had failed, should be recalled since service delivery had not improved in Bushbuckridge, Emalahleni or Musukaligwa..
In Thaba Chweu Municipality, which is under administration, the DA has laid criminal charges against it for not attending to raw sewage leaks into watercourses and for not disposing of waste correctly at the Lydenburg landfill site.
