‘You must account to us’ – DA on TribeOne fiasco

The Democratic Party served a Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) request on Friday to all parties involved in the TribeOne Dinokeng Music fiasco to compel political accountability and public debate about what led to the massive financial losses suffered by the City.

Lex Middelberg, author of the document, said there was no legal basis on which the City could withhold information from councillors and the public. “As councillors, it is our duty to look at these documents. If we ask for them, we are supposed to be given them. That we now have to use legal procedures to get hold of the documentation relating to the fiasco is scandalous,” he said.

He pointed out that since the planned festival’s failure, the metro had tried everything to avoid accounting to the public for the loss of at least R65 million. “The speaker has contrived a claim of sub judice to avoid a debate in council about the issue in a move that has no merit, because the question of whether or not there should be a report to councillors about the matter is not a dispute in any court of law,” he said.

He remarked that The MMC for economic development, Subesh Pillay, who is ultimately the political office bearer responsible for the failure and financial losses, has refused to hand over any documentation to the opposition councillors, stating that all documentation will be submitted to the Auditor-General for eventual audit.

“The ANC leadership is trying everything to escape their political accountability in a public debate. The MMC is hoping that he can kick the issue into touch for eternity by referring it to the Auditor-General. He knows as well as we do that this fiasco falls in the 2014/15 financial year and that the Auditor-General is likely only to deal with it in the audit report to be made public two years from now, in January 2016,” he said.

He added that Pillay and his department are obliged, by law, to account on both levels: to the Auditor-General about the financial issue of the money being misspent and to council for open political accounting to the public.

“From a pre-signature draft of the TribeOne contract with the organisers, it is apparent that the mayor and the municipal nanager are desperate to keep the documentation under wraps to avoid a discussion of their personal liability for the signature of a contract that exceeded their authority to sign that has been legally delegated to any of them,” he said.

The request states that in terms of the Management Delegations Resolution of Council in 2012, entering into any contract that has financial obligations for the municipality beyond one financial year must be approved by council, while the executive mayor’s powers to enter into a contract on behalf of the city is capped at R20 million.

The contract in question covered three financial years, and the annual payments to the organisers was for at least R25 million, with an added contractual obligation to spend vast amounts of money on dedicated infrastructure development that would benefit no one other than the organisers.

Middelberg stressed that the MFMA states that no contract imposing a financial obligation on a municipality may be withheld from the council, nor may it be withheld from public scrutiny. He also pointed out that the contract never served in council for their approval.

“The refusal of the speaker to table a motion calling for this document (among others) to be tabled in council is simply illegal and unconstitutional. We believe from our scrutiny of the pre-signature draft agreement that there is a strong case that the individuals who exceeded their authority to sign off on this contract acted ultra vires and that the agreement may in fact be void in all respects.

“The guarantee given by the individuals concerned that the MFMA has been complied with cannot be relied on by any of the parties. It is our opinion that all losses of the city that are not repaid may be recovered from the individuals who unlawfully signed off on the contract, especially from the municipal manager, who is also legally liable because he is the accounting officer of the city in terms of the MFMA. In addition, we question the management of the contract after it was signed. In terms of the MFMA, the municipal manager was obliged to regularly report to council on the contract management progress. Neither he, nor the mayor, who is obliged to table the reports from the municipal manager, ever presented any such management report to council. As a result, council never knew what was going on and we could not recommend remedial action when it mattered,” he explained.

He also questioned the qualifications of key staff in the municipal manager’s office who, from the city’s side, were supposed to manage and monitor the project. “Lindiwe Kwele, the deputy municipal manager, claims to have an MBA from the University of Wales. Normally an MBA would be indicative of an ability to perform those tasks adequately, however, our inquiries have shown that the University of Wales was disbanded in 2011 following a scandal about the sale of qualifications via the internet. We have specifically asked the City in the PAIA request to reveal what steps were taken by the City’s human resources department to verify that the MBA concerned was internationally rated, peer recognised and accredited by one of the MBA accrediting authorities,” he concluded.

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