New date for Manase report

INLSA

Sibongiseni Dhlomo

The long-awaited full Manase and Associated report will be made public by the end of December when all the internal disciplinary hearings have been completed.

This is another promised date from mayor James Nxumalo, who yesterday said the hearings would be expedited to ensure the full 700-page report could be released.

A summarised version of the report was released by KwaZulu-Natal Co-operative Governance MEC Nomusa Dube earlier this year.

The city has promised to release the report on several occasions, but has failed to do so.

The damning probe into allegations of maladministration, fraud and corruption implicated nine senior managers in the eThekwini Municipality and 123 other council employees.

Speaking at the ANC eThekwini regional executive committee media briefing, Nxumalo, who is also the region’s spokesman, said the committee was pleased with the progress made by the ANC-led council in implementing the report’s recommendations.

Regional secretary, Bheki Shangase, said the committee supported the council’s decision not to publish the report while the process of implementation was still in progress.

“As a disciplined force of the left, the ANC will always be biased to worker’s rights and therefore don’t believe that workers should be subjected to unfair public scrutiny,” he said.

Several city officials have, however, been subjected to scrutiny, including former municipal manager Michael Sutcliffe, who has since broken his silence, revealing how he had been put under pressure by certain politicians who wanted him to abuse tender processes in their favour while he was in office.

Condemned

The committee’s chairman, Sibongiseni Dhlomo, on Wednesday strongly condemned Sutcliffe’s recent statement in the media, saying if he had issues or concerns that needed to be addressed then he should have raised them with the relevant structures in the party and not in the public domain.

“We are the home of the ANC and he (Sutcliffe) is part of us. He must find a space and raise his issues within us,” said Dhlomo.

Following Sutcliffe’s recent comments, Dhlomo said he had tried to set up a meeting with the former city boss to no avail.

“I’m not saying we don’t have problems in the ANC but let us not air them out for all to see, let’s address them in a collective manner,” he said.

Sutcliffe said he had never been contacted by Dhlomo, but said it was him that had twice tried to contact the Health MEC unsuccessfully.

As a former member of the provincial legislature, Dhlomo said Sutcliffe had access to other leaders of the party in the province and should rather have informed them of his concerns.

Sutcliffe, however, said every statement he had made regarding the Manase investigation, during and after the report’s release, had been discussed with senior ANC and alliance provincial leaders.

“Given that we were never given the right to respond to the issues and due process was never afforded to us, we have had no… recourse but to defend our names and integrity and show what we did to fight corruption,” he said.

The DA said the committee’s statements were nothing more than smoke and mirrors.

nondumiso.mbuyazi@inl.co.za