Top Tshwane officials to be suspended for corruption

Two top city officials, chief financial officer Andile Dyakala and the strategic executive director in the city manager’s office Tshilidzi Nemahagala, are to be suspended, pending disciplinary action.

This follows after several tenders which went wrong was investigated and Dyakala’s name came up in a in a printing tender, which eventually led to a court case. Nemahagala faces charges of dereliction of duty.

In delivering his report in the monthly council meeting, mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa asked special permission from council that he could spearhead the suspension of officials found to be involved in corruption. He was given this and notices of intention to suspend Dyakala and Nemahagala was served on Friday on the officials after the acceptance of the committee resolution instructing disciplinary proceedings to be launched against them.

The two officials have seven days to motivate in writing why they should not be suspended before Jason Ngobeni, the city manager, takes a final decision on their suspension.

In council Ramokgopa reiterated that with his acceptance of office and when again in delivering his speech of the State of the Capital, he said that his administration embarked on the running of clean administration. “This effort is championed by the city manager to make sure that we get value for money and run an administration that is free from corruption,” he said.

“You would have noticed that action has been taken by the metro police with regard to investigations that are ongoing. We are confident that we have prima faci evidence that is going to be confirmed in court of law. We are going after those who seek to undermine this administration through their corrupt activities,” he said.

“There are no holy cows. We will pursue and get them. We know they present false invoices, we know that they are pilfering our stocks, we know that they are stealing our fuel. We have reason to believe that the power failures are also an inside job. We will work and get the information. We know that they make appointments against a structure that does not exist. We know that they are embellishing invoices, that the work is R10 and that they collaborate with the service provider making it R15. We know they make reports that there was delivery of goods at the stores when in fact is was not done,” he said.

His announcement in pursuing corruption in the municipality was received with approved hand clapping. In the quest of ridding the municipality of corrupt officials, three other officials have recently been fired while several disciplinary actions are pending against a number officials. Recently six employees of the municipality’s fleet management and its director was arrested by the Tshwane metro police after they have been found defrauding the municipality.

Selby Bokaba, spokesperson for the municipality said the municipality is serious about its fight against corruption. To this end the municipality has instituted an anti-fraud and corruption hotline and a full-time forensic investigation unit.

Even though the purposeful and focused approach of the mayor was well received by the opposition parties, Adriana Randall of the DA said that the amount of losses the metro suffers by fraud and crime cannot be ascertained.

“There are more officials who benefit from corrupt use of the ratepayers money than had been caught. Many get away with corruption because there are just not enough investigators to catch them,” she said.