A proposal to condone ‘wasteful’ expenditure dating back to the previous financial year, amounting to R224 000 caused debate in last week’s Council executive committee meeting.
The DA’s Dr Sandy Bedassi was not happy ‘just to condone the write off’, telling his fellow Councillors that ‘we are working with ratepayers money – not our money’. Fellow executive committee member, Thulani Mahaye (ANC), said the issue was one ‘of procedure rather than of anything else and that all municipalities are faced with from time to time’. “It is not that anyone stole,” he said, “if we don’t condone, it is just going to hang over us without being settled.”
Dr Bedassi, however, remained firm, citing examples of a sound system, costing R2000, being hired for a municipal event and again for R800.
“Why are there discrepancies? We need to know rather than just condoning.” He used the example of R2000 being spent on a ‘spiritual consultant’ at a municipal workshop.
“It looks like the municipality is an open cookie jar. Why? There must be reasons. I cannot condone this kind of expenditure.” He also wanted to know why the previous Council had not investigated these issues – some of which date back to 2015. He was supported by Councillor M Xaba (ANC) who said ‘all steps must be taken in future not to allow this to happen again’.
Mayor Mbatha commented that it would be prudent for the municipality to buy their own sound system rather than keep on spending money on hiring equipment. Previous Speaker, SB Mdluli, quoting the Municipal Finance Act said ‘irregular and wasteful does occur’. “I would say condone but investigate what were the circumstances that caused such spending to occur.” Dr Bedassi concluded by saying ‘irregular expenditure could never be justified’.