North West municipality accused of stealing money meant for flood victims

The Ngaka Modiri Molema district municipality in North West has been accused of stealing money that was supposed to help flood victims in Deelpan village. This followed two flooding incidents. One occurred on 17 December 2021 and another on 18 February this year.

According to a document titled Section 29 of Municipal Finance Management Act 56 of 2003: Unforeseen and Unavoidable Expenditure Report, a total of R5 769 208,40 was used to mitigate the effects of the floods in the village.

The report further claimed R2 635 371 was used to build shacks and buy tents, salvage sheets, mattresses and blankets. Mbahare Kekana, the president of Forum 4 Service Delivery and chair of the municipal public accounts committee, called for further investigation as he believes that there was a misappropriation of funds.

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“We want investigations be cause it is evident prices were inflated. There was poor coordination from the national government, provincial government, district to the local municipality. Tswaing local municipality was sidelined instead of channelling all the resources through them,” Kekana charged.

“It is said that more than R300 000 was used to host meetings for officials regarding the situation in Deelpan. So it is quite clear that the money was used to benefit government officials instead of helping the residents,” Kekana added.

The municipality’s spokesperson, Lehlogonolo March, refuted the claims, saying the money was not only used for Deelpan village.

“It must be placed on record that the department of community services in Ngaka Modiri Molema district municipality procured shacks and other relief materials not necessarily for Deelpan only, where at the time due of the crisis, the municipality portfolio committee on finance conducted an inspection to assess what was needed,” March said.

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“The municipality of Deelpan spent only R256 300 on mobile toilets which were placed at entrances of the area to provide communities access to sanitation services as well as the fees for 90 matriculants of Badibana Secondary School in Deelpan attending boot camp Boots amounting to R16 784.”

According to the report, each shack cost the municipality around R47 000.

“It’s impossible a shack will never cost more than R15 000. Go to the hardware store and ask how much the material would be plus labour, it cannot be such a huge amount,” Kekana said.

Democratic Alliance councillor in the municipality, Yusuf Laher, said: “Not only do the people of Deelpan deserve to know what happened to the relief funding, they also need answers as to why the district municipality has failed to respond to their dire needs.”

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– news@citizen.co.za