Hawks raid 3 Upper Highway houses after fraud allegations surface

THE Hawks National Clean Audit Task Team raided three houses in the Upper Highway area on Thursday in relation to alleged fraud, corruption and money laundering.

The houses are believed to belong to various eThekwini officials involved in corruption worth an estimated R200 million.

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Hawks spokesman,  Hangwani Mulaudzi said the operation follows allegations of awarding of tenders by the municipality without following due processes.

“The monetary value involved is approximately R200 million.”

According to Mulaudzi, various companies and other service providers allegedly colluded with municipal officials and were paid millions of Rands for fictitious work since 2006 to date.

It is alleged municipal officials endorsed certain companies and also registered fictitious businesses in order for them to be awarded lucrative tenders thus benefiting from unlawful and fraudulent payments.

“Most of the companies were not even registered on the municipalities data base.”

He added that the operation was successful and has led to the seizure of a number of documents and electronic equipment which will assist in the ongoing probe.

He said no arrests were effected at this stage, pending investigations which are at an advance stage.

The Corruption Watch was one of the many stakeholders which welcomed the action by the Hawks.

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“This comes soon after the Auditor General detailed the exceptionally high levels of irregular expenditure in the eThekwini municipality in his MFMA report earlier this month,” said Corruption Watch head of campaigns, Karam Sigh.

He said these raids follow the arrest of former mayor of eThekwini, Zandile Gumede, on corruption charges last year.

“For too long, municipal officials  have been able to plunder public funds with impunity, and the continuous misuse of funds that is supposed to provide essential services to residents contributes to the poor service delivery and declining living standards in these municipalities.

“The raids by the Hawks and the Asset Forfeiture Unit represents the first step in holding these corrupt officials accountable, and we hope this leads to more investigations, arrests and prosecutions,” he said.

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