Nkosi Mlaba Cultural Day scandal: ANC must authorise full forensic audit of Msunduzi tenders
Two weeks ago the Democratic Alliance (DA) revealed that senior officials in the Msunduzi Municipality had diverted a payment of over R1-million from a "Nkosi Mlaba Cultural Day" to funding an ANC election rally (see statement). The documents that were used to authorise this expenditure were lodged with the Auditor-General to investigate. However, to date the ANC has not taken any action against its members implicated. If the ANC were truly committed to stamping out corruption in its ranks, it should authorise a full forensic audit to all tenders in this municipality.
While the Auditor-General has committed to investigating this expenditure, the DA believes that the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal needs to take direct responsibility this quite outrageous incident, and instigate its own action against corrupt party members. The party must take responsibility because these officials were deployed and are accountable to the ANC. We therefore call on the ANC in KwaZulu-Natal to require the MEC for local government, Mr. Thembinkosi Mchunu to institute his own forensic investigation into the Nkosi Mlaba cultural day fiasco and all other tenders.
Quite clearly the ANC has a deeply entrenched culture of patronage and corruption within its ranks. Therefore, no less that a forensic audit of all tenders and payments made by this municipality will help to bring this corruption to public scrutiny.
Furthermore all the municipal officials implicated should be suspended while the investigation is under way. This will eliminate the possibility of officials tampering with the evidence.
By failing to authorise a forensic audit of all tenders in the Msunduzi Municipality the ANC will quite clearly be demonstrating that President Zuma's pledge to "pay particular attention to combating corruption and fraud in procurement and tender processes" was nothing more than an empty promise.
Statement issued by Mark Steele MP, Democratic Alliance spokesperson on public accounts, July 21 2009
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