MBOMBELA – The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) has resorted to combating alleged fraud and corruption in government in Mpumalanga through the police. The party recently laid criminal complaints against the Speaker in the provincial legislature Ms Thandi Shongwe and officials in Mbombela Local Municipality (MLM).
Spokesman for the police in Mbombela, Capt Dawie Pretorius, has confirmed that they are investigating the two cases.
Yet both MLM and the legislature say they have not formally been informed by the police of the investigations, and the media queries were the first they heard of them.
One complaint pertains to the payment of a service provider for services which were allegedly never rendered. LED general manager Mr Dumisani Mabuza and municipal manager Mr Noko Seanego, are named as allegedly defrauding the municipality of R250 000 by making the payment.
The other pertains to what the EFF calls the Speaker’s involvement in allowing the now-ANC member and former-EFF MPL, Ms Ayanada Tshabalala, to continue to live in the official residence after her resignation from her position in legislature, and allowing her to attend a course on governance aimed at MPLs last week.
The provincial Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport (DPWRT), which is in charge of members’ accommodation, gave a one-month notice of termination of the lease agreement to the estate agent on July 2.
Mr Collen Sedibe insists that this is proof of irregularities since Tshabalala officially resigned at the end of May, not the beginning of June as she claims, and her month to vacate the premises had expired, according to Sedibe.
Tshabalala would not comment on the complaints.
Ms Zama Memela-Gamede, spokesman for the provincial legislature, says they are not in a position to confirm nor deny the existence of the criminal case against the Speaker.
“We have only received a media enquiry about the alleged case and there has been no formal communication from the SAPS regarding the case. As up to this day we have not received any formal communication in this regard,” she said on Wednesday.
Mr Joseph Ngala, spokesman for MLM, said they could also not comment until they have formally been informed of the investigation by the police. “This is the first time we are hearing about this,” he said. “We will leave it to the police to investigate.”
