The Ekurhuleni municipality has been consistently in the news, albeit not for excellence in service delivery, but a spate of stories linked to corruption and poor governance.
In the latest matter Sowetan reported on Thursday, a forensic report exposes how more than R300m was paid over eight years to refurbish a municipality-owned office block.
According to the report tabled in the council, Ekurhuleni had initially budgeted R46m to renovate the SAAME Building to house its various departments. The project on the structure in Germiston's CBD was meant to start in 2017 and be completed in 2021. A more shocking twist to the story is the revelation that a further R39m is needed to complete the refurbishment of the building.
The report points to payments made for inflated material prices, shoddy work and more millions of rand for work that was never done. Though allegations of fraud are still to be tested, what is clear is that public funds have been misused.
Secondly, the lack of oversight of how the monies were used points to governance failures and suspicions of corruption. Where was the council's oversight in this project when cost kept escalating?
While nothing is being done to end the rising culture of impunity and maladministration in Ekurhuleni, public trust is being eroded on a daily basis.
It is disheartening that all this emerges a week after the murder of Ekurhuleni municipality senior auditor, Mpho Mafole. His killing is linked to another sordid affair linked to corruption – a probe into an electricity billing scandal that cost Ekurhuleni residents over R2bn.
Ekurhuleni mayor Nkosindiphile Xhakaza has alluded to a link between Mafole's murder and the municipality's financial scandals. There's no telling if one of the scandals involves the Germiston building.
Elsewhere in Ekurhuleni, a 3,500-unit housing project in Mafole's hometown of Tembisa has stalled for five years, leaving a spectre of a ghost town on the edges of the township. In May, human settlements minister Thembi Simelane visited the site and promised to announce intervention plans. Nothing has come out of that promise yet, which adds to worrisome developments involving public funds in Ekurhuleni.
While nothing is being done to end the rising culture of impunity and maladministration in Ekurhuleni, public trust is being eroded on a daily basis. The inaction directly affects the residents through poor service delivery and lack of maintenance to public infrastructure, two serious problems in the metro.
If this culture of wastage in the metro is not stopped and officials responsible are not held accountable, impunity will breed more corruption and wastage.
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