DA says new Tshwane administrator lied about R1bn irregular expenditure

The Democratic Alliance (DA) Tshwane mayoral candidate Randall Williams slammed the comments of City of Tshwane administrator, Mpho Nawa, after he claimed that the city’s irregular expenditure were over R1 billion, Pretoria News reported.

Previously serving as the West Rand district municipality’s mayor, Nawa was announced as Tshwane’s new head of municipal administration last week Monday, along with nine other administrators, to take charge of the metro.

He said during a media briefing on Thursday that the Auditor-General’s report for the 2018/19 financial year indicated that irregular expenditure had increased to R89 million from R64 million, or a 30% increase.

Williams said Nawa’s comments were “reckless” and “misinformed” and warned him to not get himself involved in political battles.

“An unqualified audit report from the auditor-general was received by the City’s DA-led administration and Nawa did not acknowledge that,” he said.

The mayoral candidate said since its 2016 victory in Tshwane, the DA had cleaned up the city of illegal contracts which included the Peu electricity smart meters, Tshwane Broadband and Moipone Fleet.

He added these contracts were the ones that had contributed to Tshwane’s irregular expenditure and threw a jab at Nawa for “failing to run two African National Congress (ANC) led municipalities”, but had the courage to question Tshwane’s finances.

“Nawa should be leading the municipal offices instead of spreading lies,” Williams said.

He said the process would ensure that Hammanskraal residents were finally provided with clean drinking water.

However, Williams rebutted Nawa’s claims saying the DA had already awarded a R250 million tender for the refurbishment of the Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Plant.

“One would hope that Nawa is aware that the problems at the City of Tshwane are due to the ANC’s political game-playing and not administrative issues,” Williams said.

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