By Sibusiso Ngalwa and Fred Kockott
Transport Minister S'bu Ndebele appointed close associate George Mahlalela as his acting director-general despite Mahlalela being fingered in a forensic report for a number of irregularities over KwaZulu-Natal bus subsidy contracts of almost R1.2 billion.
KwaZulu-Natal's former head of transport, Kwazi Mbanjwa, now personal adviser to Ndebele, also chose not to lay various criminal charges recommended in the report.
Mbanjwa this week admitted that he had been asked to act against Mahlalela in 2006, but argued that he could not as Mahlalela had resigned as KwaZulu-Natal's chief director of public transport soon afterwards.
"At that time I didn't think that opening a criminal case was the right thing to do. For me, what was important was putting the systems in place (to avoid a recurrence)," said Mbanjwa.
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Mahlalela has now resurfaced in higher political office, and, as acting national director-general of transport, now controls the Transport Department's R24bn budget, together with Ndebele as minister, and Mbanjwa as an adviser.
Mahlalela is also now the boss of senior officials who wanted him punished in view of the serious findings of KPMG's forensic audit. This is understood to have created unhappiness and fear that some of these officials might now be victimised.
The Sunday Tribune is in possession of a letter, dated February 2006, from Lucky Montana - who was an acting director-general at the national department at the time - advising Mbanjwa to act against Mahlalela.
Montana advised Mbanjwa that the KPMG forensic report had found that, as a chief director for public transport in KwaZulu-Natal at the time, Mahlalela had on "several instances" extended bus contracts without the knowledge of his head of department and "with no delegated authority to execute such functions".
Some of the contracts were extended for up to seven years. The contracts were estimated to total almost R1.2bn.
Montana further states that while Mahlalela denied ever signing the extensions to the auditors, bus operators "confirmed in sworn affidavits that the extension letters in their possession were personally handed to them by the chief director (Mahlalela).
"A report from the handwriting experts reflected that the signatures on all the letters are without doubt authentic and natural signatures with an established signature pattern of Mahlalela," said Montana.
Montana asked Mbanjwa to act and that Mahlalela and two other officials be given an opportunity to respond to the findings.
But this never happened and Mahlalela left quietly.
Montana is now the chief executive of Metrorail, a subsidiary of the Transport Department. This means that Montana also now reports to Mahlalela - the man he had urged Mbanjwa to act against.
While Montana could not be reached for comment, Mahlalela refused to speak about the leaked findings of the KPMG audit.
He said, "I'm not going to comment on those things."
Ndebele, the former premier of KwaZulu-Natal and a former MEC of transport, was yesterday defiant about his promotion of Mahlalela, and said the leaking of the findings of the forensic report could be "political blackmail".
He insinuated that this was being done by those who wanted the DG position. "If people want the job, they must apply. The closing date was Friday and I don't know if Mahlalela has applied," said Ndebele.
Mahlalela was appointed by Ndebele after the departure of Mpumi Mpofu - who resigned a month ago. Mpofu's last day with the department was yesterday.
Ndebele's relationship with Mahlalela can be traced back to 1995 when, as KwaZulu-Natal transport MEC, he appointed Mahlalela as his private secretary. Ndebele was the provincial premier when the KPMG report came out.
Ndebele said he had become aware of the findings only this week.
"This thing was settled in 2005. The HOD (Mbanjwa) dealt with it then. If it was so important, why did it never reach me as premier? The KPMG report mentioned five people who had to answer and the first one was Mbanjwa, who is my adviser. Why are you not asking about him?" he said.
- This article was originally published on page 2 of Tribune on November 01, 2009
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