ThE EMBATTLED Emfuleni Local Municipality has extended the contract of acting municipal manager Oupa Nkoane for six months despite him being implicated in a forensic report into allegations of wasteful expenditure during the 2017/2018 financial year.
Nkoane’s contract was extended on October 10, shortly after his initial contract expired on September 30. He assumed the position of acting municipal manager in October 2017 after the municipality removed Sam Tshabalala, its former municipal manager, who was accused of irregularly awarding conntracts worth over R150 million that were never implemented.
Deputy Minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Parks Tau said his department was playing an oversight role with municipalities to ensure that they take appropriate steps to recruit senior managers who meet the requirements and “all officials found to be corrupt must be held to account”.
DA caucus leader Edward Von Bodenstein said he was concerned about Nkoane’s re-appointment.
“It is public knowledge that Mr Nkoane’s name has been a subject of adverse publications in both local and national newspapers and that on its own is cause for concern,” said Von Bodenstein.
Independent Municipal and Allied Trade Union deputy chairperson in Emfuleni Moses Mohosho said they had not been informed of Nkoane’s re-appointment.
“What we know is that he should have gone by now and we are not even told about the extension of his contract. We are also aware that interviews for the permanent municipal manager have been postponed, but we were also not formally informed about all these decisions,” said Mohosho.
Nkoane is among municipal officials fingered in a forensic report compiled by Comperio Consulting for irregular expenditure after they illegally extended the contract of Mafoko Security Services.
Contents of the report were published in the Sunday Independent on October 6 and four days later his contract was extended.
The report recommended that Emfuleni must recover R60 million from the service provider that benefited from an irregular contract extension, while Nkoane should account for R38m for extending the contract to Mafoko in February last year.
Nkoane is also linked to a number of gross negligence and dereliction of duty cases including the municipality’s failure to pay electricity supplier BXC which resulted in some parts of Emfuleni plunged into darkness two months ago.
Emfuleni Municipality is one of the worst performing in the country. In his 2017/2018 municipal audit report, Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu revealed that Emfuleni’s books were not audited following the shooting of one of the auditors in the leg.
The municipality, which experienced massive service delivery failures and could not even pay its utility bills and collect rubbish, was placed under administration last year due to financial mismanagement and lack of service delivery.
Emfuleni mayoral spokesperson Lebo Mofokeng said Nkoane’s contract was duly considered by council, adding that it would remain in force pending the finalisation of the permanent municipal manager selection which could be finalised by December 2019.
“All forensic reports are currently under consideration by the municipality’s public accounts committee as directed by council and the council sub-committee is expected to deliver its outcome to the council in due course,” said Mofokeng.
Governance expert and political analyst Sandile Swana said: “If David Makhura and (the department) want an improvement they should have a complete formal review of the municipal manager and his team from a government point of view. These people must not only be professionally competent, but they must be people who have good record of obeying the law,” said Swana.