Eastern Cape co-operative governance & traditional affairs MEC Xolile Nqatha has blamed factional politics for thwarting a bid by his department to curtail graft at municipalities.
Addressing the standing committee on public accounts in parliament, Nqatha blamed factions at local councils for shielding each other from adverse investigative findings in a number of reports compiled and endorsed by his department.
He was addressing the committee as part of a report on investigations at 39 municipalities in the province at the request of the committee, after he was sent packing last week when his department produced different reports on the same subject.
“Sometimes the people who have done wrong belong to a dominant faction and therefore it becomes even difficult to convene council so that the MEC can go and table the investigation report, because the dominant faction is a stumbling block.
“This is the politicisation of the whole thing and because of that 'factionalisation', the report is treated 'collectively', blocking a due process even if [the report] has been tabled. People would then begin to challenge and represent those who are alleged to have done a wrong thing,” said Nqatha.
He said such actions occurred despite clear findings which guided council on how to remedy the alleged wrongdoing.
Nqatha said another stumbling block, even for the MEC before him, was municipalities which believed that they needed to give permission before his department could intervene and investigate alleged wrongdoing.
“They consider those investigations to be illegal and they are not co-operating, hence I am taking the route of gazetting [the intention to investigate]. I went to the extent of requesting a senior counsel opinion which agreed that the law does provide for the MEC to exercise his power,” said Nqatha.
He said further challenges in dealing with corruption at municipalities was that groups who report alleged corruption would then push for those implicated [to leave] even before councils have taken a decision.
“They would want to ... take over the role of council. If [a report] says so and so has been appointed as a director with no qualifications, they want that person out of the municipality,” he added.
Nqatha's report to the committee showed that a number of municipalities in the province had serious investigations by the Hawks, the Special Investigative Unit, the National Treasury and by his department.
Investigations range from dodgy tenders, to tenders awarded to companies which have never done the work required, to others involving politicians.
Some MPs were not happy with the report, saying it lacked detail.
ANC MP Bheki Hadebe said, “[The report] is not detailed, we do not have a sense of the issues highlighted ... The report does not tell us how many officials were implicated and what positions they hold.”
He said the committee needed to know who the culprits implicated in corruption were and how many referrals were done in terms of the findings.
ANC MP Sakhumzi Somyo agreed with Hadebe's points but decried the pace at which investigations were done and concluded, including taking those implicated through court processes.
“We must be exemplary in dealing with matters and if such examples don't exist, these matters are going to continue and even the MEC himself will be undermined if they investigate for the sake of investigation. When they follow up or make referrals, such referrals take a long time to find a resolution,” said Somyo.
