City of Tshwane appoints disgraced former Ba-Phalaborwa CFO

The DA has learnt that the City of Tshwane has appointed Aubrey Mushwana, the former CFO of the embattled Ba-Phalaborwa local municipality, in a finance position in its housing and human settlements department.

This is despite him resigning from the Ba-Phalaborwa municipality with a cloud over his head.

Mr. Mushwana resigned before a disciplinary process could be instituted against him in relation to him failing to perform his duties, which resulted in the municipality receiving two disclaimer of opinions from the Auditor-General (AG) under his watch. In total, Ba-Phalaborwa municipality has received eight disclaimers in a row.

The 2013/14 Municipal Financial Management (MFMA) report reveals that the Ba-Phalaborwa municipality spent millions on consultants for financial reporting but still received a disclaimer. The AG also found that serious intervention was required in the municipality when it comes to ensuring effective leadership, proper human resource management and proper policies and procedures being followed. There were also no proper record-keeping, reporting or compliance systems in place.

Under Mr. Mushwana’s leadership during the 2012/2013 financial year, the municipality also spent over R29 million in unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure. The AG found that this was largely as a result of the municipality failing to follow proper procurement processes.

As CFO of the municipality during this period, Mr. Mushwana was directly responsible for these serious failures.

The fact that the City of Tshwane has appointed someone who clearly cannot manage public money and who also has failed to respond to serious allegations against him during his time as Ba-Phalaborwa municipality CFO is of serious concern.

The City of Tshwane’s 2015/16 Housing and Human Settlement budget is just over R670 million rand, which is 17.4% of the total R3.9 billion capital budget.

The DA believes that serious questions need to be asked over whether Mushwana is fit to hold any position, which requires the management of public funds, in particular a budget of hundreds of millions of Rands.

The City of Tshwane needs to provide answers on how Aubrey Mushwana was appointed in this position despite the massive cloud over his head.

The DA will therefore be posing questions to City of Tshwane Executive Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa on the appointment of Mr. Mushwana, more specifically:

1)    Whether the finance position in the department of housing and human settlements was advertised;

2)    What were the reasons for appointing Mr. Mushwana in this position; and

3)    Whether a proper vetting process was concluded before appointing Mr. Mushwana

Under the ANC, the City of Tshwane has become nothing more than a patronage system where jobs are kept for friends and family members. Service delivery has come second to politicians and officials who are solely focused on holding onto power and rewarding themselves.

The DA will root out corruption when it comes into government in Tshwane. We will only employ civil servants who are fit for purpose, not someone’s friend, or relative or member of a particular political party.

We are committed to cleaning up Tshwane by firing corrupt and incompetent officials and putting the needs of residents first.