Corruption within the Tshwane Metro
A total of seven people were recently arrested for various acts of corruption.
The Tshwane metro police are combating corruption in the city and within their department after a total of seven people were arrested last week for various acts of corruption.
In the latest incident a former metro police officer was arrested for scamming the public off their money by promising them employment at the police department.
The suspect committed the act by pretending to still be an employee of the department. He allegedly sold vacancies for R2 000 outside the Tshwane metro police department in Boom Street, CBD, and has already received large sums of money throughout the area.
“He was arrested when a security officer working at the offices notified the metro police that the suspect had promised him employment if he paid R2 000. There is no way the metro police will ‘sell’ jobs for money,” said spokesperson Senior Superintendent Isaac Mahamba. The metro police advise the public not to pay money or bribes to get employment or service.
“There is no way of getting your money back. People should report such matters to the metro police if they have any information,” Mahamba said.
Six Tshwane metro employees are also expected to appear in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court after they were arrested at their office in Marabastad for fraud and corruption, the metro police told Rekord.
According to 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.
