The KwaDukuza Municipality is appointing an independent company to investigate how R35.7-million was fraudulently transferred from its accounts.

The staggering amount of money was transferred in two batch payments over the course of 45 minutes on January 31, but little is publicly known about the details almost two weeks on.

Questions about where the money was transferred to, whether any of it has been recovered and if there has been any progress in the investigation have so far gone unanswered.

Meanwhile, the municipality is currently being separately investigated by the Special Investigating Unit over three historic tenders from 2018 and 2019 which are alleged to have been mismanaged. No public statement has been made on that front either.

What is known about the fraudulent transaction is that the municipality’s bank, ABSA, flagged the payment as suspicious and confirmed with municipal officials that it was unauthorised. All municipal signatories were required to surrender their laptops to the IT department. ABSA blocked the municipal account to prevent further unauthorised transactions and a case was opened at KwaDukuza Police Station.

A special council meeting was held last Thursday to brief councillors further, but it was closed to the public and media.

Municipal spokesperson Sifiso Zulu confirmed that an independent service provider would be appointed to investigate the matter, but it is unclear whether the appointment has been made.

Opposition councillors and civic organisations have demanded transparency and public oversight in the process of investigating the fraudulent transaction going forward.

“This lack of communication erodes public trust,” said Dolphin Coast Residents and Ratepayers chairperson, Deon Viljoen.

“Until the full facts are known, we must assume possible collusion within the municipality. An independent forensic investigation is essential.”

DA caucus leader, Privi Makhan, called on full cooperation from all municipal departments involved and for financial misconduct to be reported to the Provincial Treasury.

ActionSA caucus leader, Nel Sewraj, criticised the security failures that allowed the transaction to take place.

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