The charges follow months of investigation and were finally ratified at a special ELM Council sitting last Friday.
The Golden Triangle Chamber of Commerce (GTCoC) says charges are a major breakthrough after years of intensive investigations with Vaalweekblad on many official negligence and extreme incompetence incidents linked to Dyakala and his former boss.
“This is a highly important milestone in a long journey which is not over until Dyakala has been disciplined and fired. After that many other overpaid and incompetent managers must also face consequences,” said GTCoC President Klippies Kritzinger.
Several ELM employees also expressed relief that Dyakala was finally being charged on outstanding issues, including his legendary temper tantrums at both subordinates and superiors.
Dyakala was known as part of the “Gang of Two” cabal at ELM whose reign of terror and intimidation against officials and service providers completely destroyed municipal financial viability, administrative cohesion and service delivery in recent years.
With former acting Municipal Manager Oupa Nkoane, Dyakala presided over huge economic harm to companies and service delivery in Emfuleni by arbitrarily deciding who would get paid and directly meddling in Council party politics to avoid consequences.
One tactic of the two was to stop payments to certain companies who were rendering services, forcing them to cut back on jobs and services – costing hundreds of jobs in Emfuleni.
A case which grabbed national headlines was the illegal halting of the smart meter contract – after BXCSA at own cost developed the most advanced infrastructure of its kind in Gauteng – terminated without no back-up plan whatsoever.
ELM lost over a billion Rand in revenue and still endures a flood of illegal power connections. BXCSA is now back after gaining a record R500 million default judgment in the Johannesburg High Court against ELM.
Metering policy cohesion was then lost throughout Emfuleni as billing and prepaid metering devolved into full-blown chaos – coupled with Dyakala’s complete mismanagement of Eskom and Rand Water debt repayment plans.
Dyakala and Nkoane were directly assisted by former ELM Speaker Maipato “Chu Chu Shoes” Tsokolibane in escaping several attempts to formally charge them by regularly cancelling council meetings to discuss these matters on spurious grounds.
Politically well-connected, Dyakala is also expected to be charged on alleged extreme verbal gender abuse against former acting Executive Mayor Khetiwe Ntombela.
