ELM corruption report “too little too late” – GTCoC

By Craig Kotze
A single forensics report involving less than R1 billion does not nearly yet give the full scale of endemic corruption over the years at ELM and the Hawks should investigate way beyond the scope of this one report, says organised business.
Why only certain contracts were investigated by forensics company Comperio and not others and the scope and criteria used to compile the report was also cause for extreme concern and should be made public immediately.
This is the view of Klippies Kritzinger, CEO of the Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) reacting to reports the Hawks at national level had set up a task team to investigate ELM graft based on an internally-commissioned forensics report.
The report by Comperio – itself already a service provider to ELM for about 10 years – has featured corruption on contract mismanagement worth almost R1billion in recent years involving both past and present top management of the embattled municipality.
The Comperio report has not yet been released formally to media and public but Ster/VaalWeekblad is in possession of it and has reported extensively on its contents in past months including the alleged involvement of present and past municipal managers and one former Executive Mayor.
Kritzinger said the Comperio report at most gave a “dipstick”assessment of corruption at ELM – corruption so widespread that the local authority has become dysfunctional and unable to provide services for years and is under partial administration by Province, he added.
“The GTCoC says to the Hawks – go wider, go deeper and go further back in time at both ELM and in terms of political connections.
“The entire municipal machinery is dysfunctional and its infrastructure so degraded that the SANDF has to be deployed and a corruption report comes up with irregularities and corruption involving less than R1 billion and only over the past five years?
“This is a municipality with an annual budget of about R6 billion. Where exactly has all the money gone over the years and this is why the Hawks who only wake up now at national level must investigate far beyond the scope and time-frame of this single Comperio report,” Kritzinger said.
Comperio itself was heavily criticised especially before the 2016 municipal elections for “doing the minimum” to investigate and expose ELM corruption and about 20 cases it opened with local police did not result in arrests and prosecutions as promised.
“We can only wait and see if the reported involvement of the Hawks at national level is a flurry in a chicken-coop or indeed the sound of a law enforcement raptor pouncing,” said Kritzinger.
The Comperio report was ordered by then Executive Mayor Jacob Khawe (now Gauteng ANC Secretary-General) and acting municipal manager Dithaba Oupa Nkoane last year. Nkoane is himself implicated in an irregular security contract of R271m and named in the Comperio report.