DA calls for inquiry into financial irregularities after Rustenburg Municipality hits R1 billion mark in unauthorised expenditure

Issued by Freddy Sonakile – DA North West Member of SCOPA
20 Mar 2020 in Press Statements

Note to Editors: Kindly find attached soundbites in English and Sesotho by DA North West Member of SCOPA, Freddy Sonakile.

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in North West proposed an inquiry into matters of governance, procurement and financial sustainability of the Rustenburg Local Municipality (RLM) after its unauthorised expenditure reached an unprecedented R1 billion for the 2018/19 financial year.

This follows after RLM appeared before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (SCOPA) at the Legislature on Wednesday to account for its deplorable financial state.

During the municipality’s appearance on 4 March at Moses Kotane, adequately respond to SCOPA’s batch of questions sent beforehand. Supporters of the Mayor, Mpho Khunou, picketed outside the building singing “SCOPA, leave our mayor” and “Supra SCOPA” as a ploy to prevent the Committee from calling the municipality to account.

As a result, RLM appeared again this week, but the second batch of questions was met with excuses of receiving it late. Clearly this entity has no intention to mend its ways or improve its poor financial state.

As part of our proposed inquiry, the DA suggested that suspended Deputy Chief Financial Officer, Tumelo Letlojane, former Municipal Manager, Nqobile Sithole, who left the municipality in a huff last year and Sam Makhura, Supply Chain Manager, who resigned in January 2020, to be summoned as possible witnesses and will propose more names once the inquiry is approved.

The Committee undertook to consider our suggestion and prioritise this matter once the Legislature resumes after recess.

Clearly the municipality reached an all-time low and carrying on with business as usual can no longer be an option.

The poor financial state of RLM is hampering service delivery and therefore the DA will persist in its fight for clean and effective governance that serve the people of North West.