Cape Town - The City of Cape Town has been accused of ducking and diving in making public a forensic report into a multimillion-rand tender fraud and corruption scandal that led to the arrest of a number of officials last year.
The City has, however, defended its stance, saying forensic reports were classified as confidential in terms of its records management policy.
Eight people were arrested in connection with alleged tender fraud in the construction sector in November, including officials in the DA-led City and directors of several local businesses.
This was after Cape Coloured Congress (CCC) leader Fadiel Adams, joined by anti-crime activist Hanif Loonat, lodged a criminal complaint against City officials on allegations of money laundering, fraud and corruption, and defeating the ends of justice concerning the alleged inflating of invoices, irregular payments of service providers for construction work not undertaken and other illicit activities, in excess of R300 million.
In a letter, a member of the CCC, Christopher Scheepers, asked why was the City ducking and diving when it came to making the forensic report into the matter publicly available, when the funds in question were taxpayers’ money.
“When Fadiel Adams alerted council to the existence of forensic report FSD015/2020-21, why were the details thereof never disclosed to council? The mayor has claimed that there is no evidence of fraud in the report. Yet the media was lied to over full disclosure over a year ago by city manager Lungelo Mbandazayo.
“What makes a city manager suppress a forensic report?” he asked.
“Our leader, Fadiel Adams has been fighting a lone but unrelenting public battle for full disclosure by the City. In a functioning, truly transparent government there would be no need for such a fight, but considering the fact that we’re facing a criminal syndicate ...”
Asked for a copy of the report, the City refused.
The City’s communications director, Priya Reddy said: “No, forensic reports are classified as confidential in terms of the City’s records management policy, which is aligned to the National Archives Act.”
“Forensic reports are not sent to council, they are sent to the delegated authorities, in terms of the council system of delegations.”
Meanwhile, Loonat called for a public debate and the resignation of mayor Goerdon Hill-Lewis on the matter “for not adhering to the recommendations of the report and failing to recoup the funds in excess of R349 million”.
He said he would be lodging a criminal complaint of defeating the ends of justice in terms of section 34 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, which states that “any person who holds a position of authority and who knows or ought reasonably to have known or suspected that any other person has committed the offence of theft, fraud, extortion, forgery or uttering a forged document, involving an amount of R100 000 or more, must report such knowledge or suspicion or cause such knowledge or suspicion to be reported to any police official”.
Reddy, however, said: “The City has acted in terms of all legislative requirements and the matter was also submitted to the auditor-general.”
In terms of what action was taken against the implicated officials, Reddy added: “One City official in the current employ of the City was implicated. Legally required disciplinary processes apply in light of the ongoing investigation.”
The City has recently boasted about a clean audit.
The Auditor-General of South Africa (AGSA) said the City had disclosed ‘irregular expenditure’ in the 2020-21 financial year. “AGSA can confirm that the City of Cape Town has received a clean audit for the 2021-22 financial year.
AGSA received the forensic report and it formed part of the risk assessment phase of the current year’s audit.
“After careful consideration of the report’s findings and recommendations, we concluded that they had no material impact on the 2021-22 audit opinion as the City of Cape Town made the necessary disclosure for irregular expenditure in the 2020-21 financial year.”
Cape Times