Durban - After eThekwini Municipality's failure to produce a report detailing how R761 000 had been spent on the funeral of businessman Don Mkhwanazi, the IFP announced on Wednesday that it would ask for the information through the Public Access to Information Act.
At last week's sitting of the executive committee, mayor Zandile Gumede and city manager S'bu Sithole had promised to present a report this week listing exactly how the R761 150 had been spent on for the funeral of the Durban businessman.
Mdu Nkosi of the IFP said the municipality's "dismal" failure to produce a breakdown detailing the full expenditure had been the motivating factor behind his bid to access the information. They were even prepared to go to court, he said.
Nkosi said he had the blessing of the IFP caucus to proceed with the application.
"We cannot just agree on the amount of R761 150 without the cost, so we want to know how it was spent."
Nkosi said they had been told at Tuesday's Exco sitting that the money had been spent on venue hire and transport, but this did not satisfy him.
"There is something fishy about this.
"We are not against the assistance by the municipality to the family, but we wanted to know how the money was spent, which is our duty as councillors to play an oversight role so that we are able to pick whether there is a dirty hand that had used that money," Nkosi said.
Nkosi said he had expected the city manager to produce the report as promised on Tuesday and would not accept the reasons given by the city until he had seen a detailed report.
"If we don't get any assistance and what we want in our application to access this information, we will take other steps. There is also the city's investigations unit that we can use," Nkosi said.
He also said that whenever communities and families had come to the municipality for help, his party was the first to support them.
But in this case, they had a feeling that something was untoward.
DA caucus leader in Exco, Zwakele Mncwango, said he had reliable information that the venue had, in fact, been donated.
Mncwango said he had no problem if the ICC had donated the venue to Mkhwanazi's family since his wife, Zodwa, was a board member of the ICC.
"By producing a detailed report I want them to prove me wrong in that the venue had been donated," Mncwango.
Nkosi reiterated that it had concerned him that the municipality had no problem providing assistance of that value towards a businessman's funeral, yet they rejected people who were struggling financially.
Daily News