Pretoria - Leading opposition parties in the City of Tshwane have rejected the DA caucus’s newly appointed acting city manager Moeketsi Ntsimane over conflict of interest.
The ANC and EFF said while mayor Stevens Mokgalapa wanted the City to part ways with the controversial and former city manager Dr Moeketsi Mosola, appointing the City’s chief auditor executive to act in his place was wrong.
The EFF continued to abstain from the process of appointing the acting city manager during last night’s heated council meeting in Tshwane House.
However, the outnumbered ANC tried to sum-up enough votes to strike down the DA’s choice of candidate.
Leader of the ANC caucus Kgosi Maepa said: “The ANC in Tshwane knows that a chief audit executive of the City should remain independent.
The appointment of Ntsimane goes against acceptable international standards of the independence of the internal audit function.
This is an important component of good clean governance.
“It is our view as the ANC that the internal audit function in the City of Tshwane should always be independent and objective in performing its work.
“We consider objectivity to be an unbiased mental attitude that allows internal auditors to perform their engagements in such a manner that their work product is unquestionable and the quality is not compromised.
"The appointment of Ntsimane undermines the latter principle of objectivity.
"This is because Ntsimane is the same person who dealt with audit reports associated with the COO James Murphy when he was nominated in July 2019 by council to be the acting city manager.
“Murphy has since withdrawn and asked for his name to be first cleared from a "non-existent" report of wrong doing self-created by the executive mayor and Dr Moeketsi Mosola.”
Mayor Stevens Mokgalapa said the ANC and EFF were made aware that there was no conflict of interest because an acting chief auditor executive would be appointed during Ntsimane's tenure as acting as city manager.
He said the City bought Mosola’s two and five months contract for him to part ways with and the ANC should not twist this and call it a “golden handshake”.