Councillors call for heads to roll after debit orders from municipal account
Endumeni Speaker Andile Nsibande commented that the matter has been reported to the police and an investigation is pending.
It has been found that fraudulent debit orders have been processed through the Endumeni municipal account.
From January to May this year, a total of R186,122.69 was debited through the municipal account.
Going back to 2020, R79,764.28 was taken off and moved to an African Bank account in the months of August to October that year.
It was during the process of compiling the manual bank reconciliation for the financial year 2021 that the fraudulent debit orders were identified.
First National Bank alerted the municipality on June 10 of suspicious debit orders made to an account number with Standard Bank.
The matter was tabled at a council meeting on June 30.
Endumeni Speaker Andile Nsibande commented that the matter has been reported to the police and an investigation is pending.
“I think these fraudulent debit orders have been going on for years and it’s only now that the municipality’s Finance Department has picked it up,” said Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) Ward 6 Councillor Xolani Msizane.
He hopes that those responsible will be fired and sentenced accordingly.
“We are tired of corruption and the misuse of municipal funds which are meant for service delivery, and we are glad that Endumeni Municipal Manager Linda Hlongwane was able to bring this to our attention as councillors.”
Msizane explained that the IFP and Democratic Alliance (DA) had a caucus on the matter. The councillors said in one voice that there needs to be accountability and that if it’s municipal workers who are responsible, they need to be brought to book.
“We are very worried about these fraudulent debit orders and the fact that it took so long for the Finance Department to identify this activity. However, we will not be pointing fingers at the chief financial officer for now,” said the ANC’s Cllr Shelembe of Ward 6.
He also explained that the reason behind this fraud is that the municipal financial system, called CCG, is currently being phased out because it is delaying the billing statements.
“The CCG system will not be renewed at the end of August because it is causing a delay in everything. If we had a reliable system, problems like this would have been identified earlier.”
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