Johannesburg - The former head of the Hawks in Gauteng, Shadrack Sibiya, will lead the city's anti-corruption unit which would operate independently and similar to a Chapter 9 institution. Johannesburg Mayor Herman Mashaba introduced Sibiya to reporters on Wednesday.
Mashaba had brought with him files he said contained cases of corruption allegedly committed during the previous African National Congress (ANC) administration, which amounted to millions of rand in losses for the city. The city had to acquire “the best investigator” in the country to bust corruption, he said.
“When I came into the city, I found cases of corruption that needed attention, and because I do not have expertise and knowledge to investigate and not competent to do the job, hence the unit for the city,” Mashaba said. He said the cases ranged from irregular awarding of tenders to unlawful appointments of staff. Most of the incidents were reported by whistleblowers within the City of Johannesburg.
The setting up of the investigation unit was not meant to purge staff, said Mashaba. “I believe in democracy, I also believe in fairness...but at the same time I am intolerant to corruption because it robs our people. We have high unemployment and residents who need houses, I find it hard that one can steal public money in the first place.”
He said when the city started gathering the reported cases of corruption, some of the staff members resigned before auditors KPMG could commence with the probe.
“One thing I can I assure those who stole from the city is that resigning will not solve their problems. I will make sure I recover public monies and put people behind bars,” said Mashaba.
“My instructions to Sibiya is to set up an effective unit and that the city can afford. Based on the number of cases you see here, they need to urgently and effectively attend to. There is corruption in almost all departments in the city, the corruption starts from small-scale such as the selling of jobs. Even the jobs that are for low skilled poor people are sold...that is how bad the situation is.”
Mashaba said some of the reported cases had been reported to the city's internal forensic unit during the previous administration, but were never investigated Sibiya said he would do his job without “fear or favour”.
“We will operate within the boundaries of the law as required by the Constitution. Myself and the team will work hard to ensure that the City of Johannesburg is clean from the cancerous disease of corruption,” Sibiya said.
The internal unit was set up to avoid spending millions of rands through the hiring of consultants from outside the city.
Mashaba promised a “big expose” on Sunday from one of the cases investigated by KPMG.
African News Agency