Six metro managers arrested

Six Tshwane metro employees are expected to appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court after they were arrested at their offices in Marabastad for fraud and corruption, the metro police told Rekord.

According to spokesperson, Senior Superintendent Isaac Mahamba, the accused were managers in the fleet management department and defrauded the department of millions of rand.

“We received a tip-off a few months ago that there are irregularities with the invoices of the department. After investigating the matter, we found several irregularities such as inflated prices, unauthorised purchase orders and transactions that happened after hours. We had no choice but to arrest the suspects,” he said.

The suspects are currently in police custody and were denied bail when they applied for urgent bail shortly after their arrest.

They are expected to be issued with ‘letters of intent to suspend’ by the metro. “As is procedure, we will give them seven days to motivate why they should not be suspended. The suspects were responsible for maintaining all municipal vehicles, including emergency services vehicles, ambulances and metro police vehicles. We opposed their bail application,” Mahamba said.

He said the metro promised the community that corruption would be dealt with severely. He added that the metro’s purpose is to serve the community. “We render services to the community and these men hindered our services by not managing the fleet properly as they were too busy conducting their corruption activities. The metro will not tolerate corruption and we will get rid of any corruption within the municipality,” he said.