Mayor found guilty of fraud, asked to give up his seat

ABAQULUSI mayor, Martin Mtshali, was found guilty of fraud by the Department of Education during a disciplinary hearing held recently.
Cllr Mtshali had allegedly been embezzling school funds from Lindumthetho Primary School, where he is still the principal. Sources indicate that more than R400 000 was reported to have been stolen. Investigations into the theft began in 2011, which implies that the IFP-DA-EFF coalition placed Cllr Mtshali in the mayoral seat, knowing that he was being investigated for fraud.
KZN Education MEC, Mthandeni Dlungwane, says his department will be following up with criminal charges, and citizen organisations, as well as the ANC, are now calling for Cllr Mtshali to step down from his position as mayor. Read on to see what other political parties and citizen organisations have to say:

THE ANC says that political parties that are in coalition with the IFP need to stand their ground against corrupt leadership.
This is according to the local ANC spokesperson Zakes Buthelezi following the release of a letter from the Department of Education that finds the Mayor, Cllr Martin Mtshali, guilty of misappropriation of funds at Lindumthetho Primary School.
The ANC is set to challenge the AbaQulusi Municipality for putting a man whom they believe is corrupt in a leadership position.
The ANC said that they would also be pressing criminal charges.
“If the Mayor does not make an appeal or take this matter for judicial review then it is a clear indication that he is guilty as charged and it is hard to see why a man with such charges against him should be put in a position of authority,” said the ANC’s Zakes Buthelezi.
According to Mr Buthelezi, it was the community that first raised concerns about money that was supposed to develop the school disappearing.
“You cannot be a public representative if you have been found guilty of a crime,” said a concerned Mr Buthelezi.
Mr Buthelezi urged political parties who have formed a working relationship with the IFP, to, “put the people first.”

“We note your hypocrisy claiming that you are for people’s rights and then going to bed with a party that puts forward a corrupt leader,” he said.

According to Mr Buthelezi, should the matter be taken to the commercial crimes unit, the Mayor could be unseated. This would in turn drag out the recruitment process for a new MM as he will not be allowed to preside in the selection panel if he is unseated.
“Should things go that far, it may still be a very long time before Vryheid gets a new municipal manager,” Mr Buthelezi said.

Despite these allegations of the money having been used to campaign for the party, the IFP’s Chief Whip, Jerry Sibiya, said that the party had not received any money to campaign for the past elections.

“No such money was received into our account at any point this year,” said Mr Sibiya.

Mr Sibiya also went on to point out that all the candidates raised their own money to campaign for their wards.
“The matter surrounding the case has not been brought before the party, nor council, and it is thus difficult for us to comment about it as yet,” Mr Sibiya.
In conclusion, Mr Sibiya said that the IFP would be dealing with the matter once it is brought to their attention by the mayor himself.

Cllr Mtshali said that he only received the letter from the Department of Education indicating that he had been found guilty on Wednesday last week.
“I received a call from Nathi Ndlovu from the department to ask if I had received this letter regarding the outcome of the investigation, and I told him that I hadn’t. It turns out he had sent it to the school’s fax and this is why I knew nothing about it,” said the mayor.
Responding to the ANC accusations of him being a corrupt leader, the mayor said that he had proven himself a worthy candidate for his position.

“The IFP and the IEC did a security check on me and found nothing. My party requested me to lead because they were confident in me,” said Cllr Mtshali.

The mayor went on to say that the South African constitutionality of presumptions states that one is innocent until proven guilty and that he would be taking legal recourse.
According to the Department of Education, the persal system still shows Mr Mtshali as the principal of Lindumthetho.
The mayor said that he put in his retirement on September 1 and does not know what the department is doing now nor when they will process those documents.
“Once one is elected and taking a full-time position, you need to resign from your current place of employment. I was fully aware of this when I was elected as the mayor and, as I result, I resigned from my position as a school principal,” he said.

The Democratic Alliance says that it will wait for the IFP to take corrective measures if there is anything untoward in the office of the Mayor.

“As of now, it is a matter between an individual and an employer and has not been presented to the municipality,” said DA Zululand’s constituency chairperson, Cllr S’busiso Nkosi.

“We are against anything involving fraud and believe that cases should be dealt with accordingly. Any individual found guilty of embezzling the public’s money should have the law to deal with. The matter is not within the jurisdiction of our party and we shall thus wait to see what the IFP reports to us,” Cllr Nkosi said in conclusion.

Chairperson of AfriForum, André van der Walt, said he found the news that Cllr Mtshali had been found guilty of fraud very disturbing.
“I did hear something about him being investigated but I did not believe that it was possible that he could be found guilty of fraud. I am shocked. The community should be able to trust the people who are put into positions of power.

“With something like this, trust goes out the window,” said Mr van der Walt.

AfriForum will be discussing this matter at its next meeting with the interest of the community at heart and Mr van der Walt urged the council to act on this information.
“The fact that the Mayor is still the principal of Lindumthetho Primary and appears to be earning two salaries from government is in itself fraud. I certainly hope that the municipality will do something about this,” he added.

Speaking on behalf of the AbaQulusi Ratepayers’ Association, Doug Grewar, also expressed grave disappointment and called for the Mayor’s resignation.
“I think that he should just resign and the council should elect someone else to take over.

“Why did the IFP pick him if he was being investigated for fraud? Surely, they should have picked a more suitable mayoral candidate,” said Mr Grewar.

“I am shocked because Cllr Mtshali seemed like such a pleasant, well-mannered man. This is going to cause a lot of problems for the IFP. They only have a narrow majority in the council because of their working relationship with other parties.

We are currently spending about R1.2million on councillor’s salaries and it just seems like such a waste. It might be better if we just scrapped the entire council and appointed an administrator. That way, we could use that R1.2million toward something more useful for the town.”

WATCH: What KZN MEC for Education, Mthandeni Dlungwana has to say: