Limpopo municipality suspends managers for alleged tender graft

A special council sitting at the Lepelle-Nkumpi municipality in Limpopo on Wednesday decided to suspend two senior managers amidst allegations of corruption in the awarding of municipal tenders worth millions of rands.

The council suspended its technical services and supply chain managers after they could apparently not explain how the municipality managed to incur R348 million of irregular and unauthorised expenditure in the 2018-19 financial year.

The council’s annual budget was nearly R500 million.

A report by Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu suggested the council had illegally spent close to its total annual budget, making it one of the most corrupt councils in the country.

A source in the council told The Citizen soon after the meeting that one of the key problems was that preventative controls, strong consequence management and a culture of effective monitoring were still lacking among those entrusted to make decisions.

According to the source, who is a councillor, tenders in the municipality were allegedly only awarded to friends, relatives and political allies with ties to the upper echelons of the ANC within the council, the region or the province.

Yesterday, municipal manager Tebogo Gafane confirmed the suspensions.

He said two managers were suspended with pay pending the outcome of internal investigations.

“It is a public knowledge that this municipality was one of those badly bruised after the contentious R150 million investment into the collapsed VBS Mutual Bank,” Gafane said. “We are still reeling from that loss and our people, who elected our councillors into power, will not sit and watch when we do nothing about their money.”

The investigations are expected to be wrapped up before the end of the month.

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