Durban - At least seven senior employees in eThekwini Metro have been roped in to assist in compiling financial and other documents to be presented by city manager Sipho Nzuza to the Zondo Commission.
A correspondence purportedly from Krish Kumar, eThekwini's Treasurer which the Daily News has seen, requested certain senior employees to put together the state of the city’s report into the financial issues as well as “possible issues” that may arise from the Commission.
The documents required by the Zondo Commission date back to 10 years.
The employees are asked to do a narrative on irregular expenditure.
“We have the report we have done previously but the annexures in each year needs to be looked at to determine if we can amplify our comments. Please also do a graph on the last 10 years on irregular expenditure and let’s analyse the trend, it was decreasing but we seem to be on the up again,” reads the correspondence.
Another employee is asked to do a similar exercise for Section 36 and Section 32 trend analysis while another one is asked to do an analysis of of collecting rates, debtors as well as the status the revenue management services.
“We need to develop a storyline to the state of city finances which we can consider once we have all the information,” it reads.
Demands by the commission include, among other things: All forensic investigation reports, finalised or in draft; internal audit reports issued; audited annual financial statements including auditor-general management reports; a list of matters reported via the municipality’s fraud hotline, with a description of each matter and what was done in respect of each matter; detailing irregular expenditure schedule as reported in the municipality’s annual financial statements and the top 20 suppliers to the municipality, by value, for each year.
According to the summons dated August 13, Nzuza is to produce the book (s), document (s) and or objects which are in his possession within 10 days of receiving summons.
Nzuza told the Daily News this morning that the city's legal and finance units were handling the gathering of the requested information.
"I received the summons last week so those two units will let me know if they are meeting the deadline and if they aren't then we will request for an extension because the information sought is for 10 years," he said.
Kumar said they have most of the information but if more time was needed they will communicate with the commission.
An internal source said former administrative and political heads have run the municipality like their spaza shops. She said Sections 32 and 36 provided for deviations from and ratification of minor breaches of procurement processes.
“What became of the Manase Report? People who were fingered were rewarded instead of being punished. The city lost approximately far more than what is an annual budget for local municipalities. Many people are currently working instead of being in jail for looting the taxpayer,” said the source.
The DA in eThekwini said Nzuza’s presentation to the commission is a positive development. Party caucus leader Nicole Graham said for too long corruption and maladministration, like the Manase Report and like hundreds of other reports are just swept under the carpet.
IFPs Mdu Nkosi said Nzuza will fail to account at the commission due to the level of corrupt activities that have taken place in the city.
"The likelihood is that the manager will fail to provide some of the documents pertaining to certain multi-million rand contracts which were dodgy from the onset. They have been failing to provide some documents to the Auditor General regarding certain contracts so they can't provide everything required by the commission," Nkosi said.