Durban — UMngeni Municipality invoices show no proof of a R100 000 payment to the uMngeni Tourism non-profit organisation (NPO) which organised the Light Up uMngeni Municipality Festival in December last year.
The NPO at that time was chaired by Jean-Pierre Prinsloo who, at the time, was also the fiancé of the mayor of the municipality, Chris Pappas.
The matter has been the subject of public debate after former DA leader in KwaZulu-Natal Sizwe Mchunu alleged that the NPO was paid R100 000 – which he called an act of nepotism because of the mayor’s relationship with Prinsloo.
In an exclusive interview with the Daily News, Pappas provided invoices that revealed that the NPO was granted R50 000 in funding to organise a festival that had been approved by the council.
According to the invoices seen by the Daily News, the payment was made on December 12 last year.
This was contrary to the allegations made by Mchunu, who in his letter of complaint to Acting Public Protector Kholeka Gcaleka alleged that the municipality paid R100 000 to the NPO.
Pappas again questioned Mchunu’s motive and timing of coming out with the false allegations, adding that the R50 000 funding was investigated by the KZN Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs before it was paid to the NPO.
He said when the NPO requested funding for the event, which was approved by the council in November, an ANC councillor wrote to the then Cogta MEC, Sihle Zikalala, and asked him to investigate.
However, Cogta found nothing wrong and the municipality went ahead with the event. Pappas said it was not strange that the matter was being raised by somebody outside the municipality, not by the opposition parties in the council since they knew the truth.
Pappas said he declared his relationship with Prinsloo to the speaker and the municipal manager and had recused himself from both the Executive Committee and the council when the NPO’s funding request was discussed and approved.
“I do not know what Sizwe’s motives are by continuing to feed the public with lies. I also do not know what proof he had provided to the public protector’s office as he said he had given them documents to back up his claims.
“What I am providing to the public now are municipality invoices which are known by the council and I challenge Sizwe to make the documents he claims he has public to prove the contrary,” said Pappas.
Cogta spokesperson Siboniso Mngadi confirmed that the department investigated the allegations in November last year. It had initiated a new investigation due to the fact that the allegations differed from those that had been investigated previously.
“Although there may be some similarities, these new allegations contain additional information that has come to our attention,” said Mngadi.
He, however, refused to divulge which new allegations the department was investigating.
Also contrary to Mchunu’s claims was the number of tourism NPOs, which he put at five. Pappas said there were three tourism NPOs operating with the municipality, which were Nottingham Road and Mpophomeni as well as Umngeni Tourism.
He dismissed Mchunu’s claims that Prinsloo moved to the Howick area after he (Pappas) had become mayor. He said the Umngeni Tourism organisation was already working with the ANC-led council in 2020 while he (Pappas) was still in the legislature.
Pappas only became mayor in November 2021. He said the NPO was registered in 2019 and Prinsloo was elected chairperson in December 2020, long before he was appointed as the mayor. Pappas said that earlier this year the NPO applied to the council for an additional grant of R100 000 on top of R10 000 the three of them were getting monthly.
He said the reason for the top-up was that unlike the other two which were promoting tourism in their respective areas, it was promoting the entire municipality.
The matter was debated in council in his absence, Pappas said, as he recused himself and it was approved by the council, but it resolved that the amount would be paid as a top-up to its original R10 000 grant and the payment would be divided by 12 months which meant the NPO would receive about R8 000 more monthly.
In his response to the allegations which he said were facts over fiction, Prinsloo said all the NPO dealings with the municipality were above board and transparent. The NPO’s financial reports, service level agreements and audited financial statements were matters of public record and openly refuted claims of impropriety, he said.
Prinsloo denied that his new company, Growth Spurt Consultancy, was involved as a consultant during the Light Up uMngeni Festival because the company had not yet been established.
“It is pivotal to view these allegations within the context of their issuance – a political gambit of substance,” said Prinsloo.
Pappas and Prinsloo officially ended their relationship in April. Prinsloo also left the NPO in July and established his new company, Growth Spurt Consultancy, in August.
When Mchunu was contacted for comment on the evidence that the NPO was paid R50 000, not R100 000, he did not dispute it. He said the allegation was that it was paid R100 000 so the onus was on the municipality to prove the allegations were wrong.
Asked whether there were invoices in the dossier he handed to the public protector’s investigative team last week, he said he did not have any invoices.
The DA has been questioning Mchunu’s “relentless attack” on Pappas and directly linked it with his appointment as the party’s premier candidate for next year’s general elections.
The party also questioned Mchunu’s timing of raising the allegations since they emerged last year and were investigated by Cogta.
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