COGTA investigation results to be revealed

Investigations into alleged misconduct by Newcastle officials will soon see the light of day.

This after a document surfaced, listing alleged outcomes of investigations conducted by the Department of Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs. The document details the alleged issues, which were uncovered by COGTA officials in the course of the investigation.

Mayor, Afzul Rehman declined to comment on the allegations at this stage as he could not possibly comment on these outcomes and allegations if he had not yet seen the results of the investigations.

“I refuse to comment on hearsay. The issues raised here are certainly not exactly in the report,” he said. “I’m told we only received the official report from COGTA on Monday, and we will have a special EXCO and Council meeting to discuss it before we respond to same. We will be open and transparent on the report.”

After a special MUNIMEC meeting held at Blackrock Casino on August 14, Nomusa Dube-Ncube, the KwaZulu-Natal MEC for COGTA discussed the preliminary reports with council. The report has since been submitted to the office of the Speaker, and the municipality has until September 18 to respond to the issues. Thereafter, the report will be finalised and served to EXCO, and the results of such made public via the media.

At the MUNIMEC meeting, Mrs Dube-Ncube read councillors and municipal officials the riot act, calling for clean and ethical governance as well as a better communication strategy among other things.

The document given to the media alleges that several senior municipal staff members’ and councillors’ actions would merit disciplinary action. The accusations range from irregular expenditure on a number of different contracts, illegal salary adjustments and appointments and irregular procedures regarding sponsorship of events and Human Resources policies. Further aspects yielded positive outcomes for the council and municipality.