The financial impact of the recent flash floods on KwaDukuza municipality is expected to go beyond R100 million as assessment and mop up operations continue in the region.
The severity of the floods caused extensive damage to roads, low lying bridges and storm water infrastructure especially around the Nonoti region where the storm left a trail of destruction to residential and business properties.
In Ward 5, extensive damage to two bridges and storm water drains in March last year as a result of flood damages were also included in the assessment.
The same bridges had once again been destroyed in the recent floods from February 22 to 23.
The two projects came under scrutiny last year when the contract amounts were questioned by the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC).
According to well placed sources the contract to repair the bridges washed away by the March floods amounted to almost R8 million.
Both the contracts were awarded to two companies, whose names are known to the Courier, under Section 36, which deviates from the normal supply chain processes.
Information relating to the two contracts could not be provided as they were not signed off by the Supply Chain Management (SCM) department.
The Courier approached two independent civil engineers to inspect the work completed by the two contractors – both engineers were unable to quantify the R8 million that the rehabilitation work cost KDM.
The projects fall under the Civil Engineering Services and Human Settlements business unit, which recorded a cumulative irregular expenditure of R40 million in the 2018/19 financial year.
While KDM’s irregular expenditure has been a consistent downfall in the last few years, the amount increased from R86 million in 2014/15 to R247 million in 2016/17.
In the last financial year National Treasury wrote off R103 million in irregular expenditure, with much of it related to the irregular awarding of contracts and the intentional abuse of systems and processes, with no competitive bidding being regularly cited.
The inability to follow supply chain rules landed KDM a dubious spot in the top three KZN municipalities that together were liable for 41 percent of the irregular expenditure incurred in 2016/17 financial year.
While irregular expenditure does not necessarily mean corruption, it does mean laws, prescripts and regulations have been broken.
Acting mayor, Dolly Govender directed harsh words to the municipal manager at last weeks council meeting appealing to him to bring the irregular expenditure under control.
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