ANC responds to DA charges against mayor, city manager
The ANC in Tshwane has hit back at the DA for pressing charges against the mayor and city manager for their alleged role in the PEU smart meter project contract.
Tshegofatso Ngobeni
The ANC in Tshwane has accused the DA of electioneering for filing criminal charges against the mayor and city manager following the controversial PEU smart meter contract on Monday.
Tshwane ANC spokesperson Teboho Joala said the DA’s mayoral candidate Solly Msimanga was using these charges for electioneering ahead of the 2016 local government elections.
“The ANC Tshwane Region finds the DA‘s latest ploy of laying fraud charges against the mayor and the city manager absurd, and short of intimidation towards the local government elections next year,” Joala said.
The DA laid charges of fraud, perjury, infringement of the municipal finance act and misleading the council against the two at the Sunnyside police station on Monday morning.
Msimanga said the charges were against mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa, municipal manager Jason Ngobeni, directors of PEU capital partners and Total Utility Management Services (TUMS) and all involved in the contract or may have benefited from it.
He alleged the PEU smart meter cost the metro R170 million in the 2013/14 financial year. The metro paid PEU an additional R1 billion during the 2014/15 financial year. The contract with PEU was terminated in June yet the metro continued to pay the company a further R250 million.
“This is in addition to the R400 million lost when the metro’s own automated meter reading infrastructure, which was barely a year old was scrapped in favour of the PEU contract,” he said.
In total, Msimanga insisted the metro had lost R1,84 billion for just more than 12 000 of the 800 000 meters that should have been installed.
This comes after the DA wrote to Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene and Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Pravin Gordhan to ask for forensic investigation into the issue.
Msimanga alleded Gordhan, who was finance minister at the time, had instructed the metro not to enter into a contract with PEU.
“Ramakgopa and Ngobeni chose to ignore the instruction and failed to inform the council when they were legally obligated to do so,” Msimango said.
Mayoral spokesperson Blessing Manale said the DA had used the charges as an anti-corruption gimmick to slander and defame the mayor under the guise of citizen activism.
“We regard this machination as a malicious attack on the personas of the mayor and the city manager, riding on the back of recent media reports on the PEU smart meter project,” Manale added.
PEU and TUMS could not be reached at the time of going to print.
Soundclip of Teboho Joala:
Also read:
Smart meters not all that smart
Mayor expresses unhappiness with smart meter contractor
Abrupt end to smart electricity meters
Metro ignored smart meter warnings
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