7 years later, and no one prosecuted over Manase Report

11 April 2018

The DA in eThekwini has written to Municipal Manager Sipho Nzuza to demand answers as to why seven years after the Manase Report was released which detailed fraud, corruption and maladministration by ANC politicians and officials, not a single individual has been arrested.

The report, commissioned by the Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs department, found amongst other things; widespread looting, illegal staff appointments, corruption and fraud. As per the provisions of the Municipal Finance Management Act, which state that if there are allegations of financial misconduct, the municipal accounting officer (municipal manager) must report such to law enforcement agencies. Since the report was presented to council in 2012 and released to the public in 2013, there hasn't been any consequences against officials implicated.

In an attempt to get to the bottom of what action had been taken by former eThekwini City Manager, Sbu Sithole, it took him almost five months to respond to the DA's questions posed through Dean Macpherson MP in Parliament in 2015. The questions sought to find out what steps have been taken against implicated individuals and also to ascertain if any of the implicated officials are still employed by the municipality.

In May 2017 Nzuza addressed stakeholders where he promised that the recommendations of the report would be implemented so as to make sure that implicated individuals are held to account but since then nothing has happened.

Further Parliamentary questions in 2017 to the then Minister of Police, Nathi Nhleko, about what progress had been made with respect to investigations against those named in the report revealed that all cases had been concluded with no further actions to be taken.

This is at odds with the answers given by Nzuza in September 2017 to questions I posed as Nzuza's answers indicated that the matter was still with law enforcement agencies, whilst the response in Parliament indicated that cases were effectively closed and nothing had happened.

In essence, this means that those ANC politicians and officials have literally got away with daylight robbery at the expense of eThekwini citizens. The DA will leave no stone unturned in rooting out corruption in eThekwini.

Issued by Thabani Mthethwa, DA eThekwini Councillor, 11 April 2018