Govan Mbeki municipality flayed for spending R160k on a few licences

The Govan Mbeki municipality has come under fire for spending R160 000 on upgrading driving licences of four employees.

The invoice seen by The Citizen showed between February and March a Secunda-based driving school was awarded a tender to train the drivers and upgrade their licences.

According to the invoice and other gathered information, the municipality reportedly paid R40 000 to the service provider to assist each driver.

Municipality denies irregular expenditure

However, municipal spokesperson Donald Green denied there was irregular expenditure in the way the tender was handled.

“Normal procurement processes were followed when appointing the service provider.

“Three bidders responded to the request for a quote and one bidder was disqualified due to noncompliance, while the lowest bidder was appointed.”

Green said the municipality wanted to make sure the employees were adequately trained through the recognition of prior learning intervention due to several limitations such as their educational and language barrier on their part as the driving licences had to be obtained through their mother tongue from the beginning to the end.

“The referred employees were employed by the municipality as light compact truck drivers needing EC1 drivers’ licence (former code 10).

“They had to operate a vehicle up [weighing] to 16 000kg. Now, with the growth of the municipality after the amalgamation of three municipalities into the current Govan Mbeki municipality, a new bigger yellow fleet was purchased [compactor trucks] which require a different code licence of EC (former code 14).”

Green reiterated that there was a need to upskill employees as their improved capabilities were being used meaningfully as they operate the newly procured bigger compactor trucks.

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Driving licences cost R5 000 normally

Under normal circumstances, an EC driving licence in the country costs between R5 000 and R5 500.

The DA in the province has also questioned the alleged irregular expenditure and urged municipal manager Elliot Maseko to investigate.

“We will make sure the officials implicated in this alleged corruption are brought to book.”

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