Buffalo City mayor Xola Pakati’s hopes to have more than R4m in wasteful and fruitless expenditure written off, have fallen flat, with some members of his own party, as well as opposition parties, calling for an investigation into what became of the money.
Some ANC councillors support Pakati’s recommendation, but many are rejecting it.
The DA and EFF said if the write-off was approved, they would record their dissent.
The R4.4m expenditure occurred between the 2009-2010 and 2017-2018 financial years.
Councillors have questioned how Pakati can reach the conclusion that the money is not recoverable.
In his report to council, Pakati said the expenditure was incurred as a result of interest charged on overdue accounts.
Acts of negligence were also blamed for the expenditure.
Pakati said there had been payments for goods that were never delivered, damage to municipal property, theft of goods, overpayment of overtime pay and salaries, overpayment of suppliers and late cancellation of bookings.
We are of the view that we are not able to recover this money
— BCM mayor Xola Pakati
The BCM Development Agency also contributed to the fruitless and wasteful expenditure “as a result of fines, penalties, travel and accommodation”, Pakati said.
He said it was impossible to recover some amounts as a huge chunk of the expenditure was old and related to incidents where employees no longer worked for BCM.
While mayoral committee members and ANC councillors Ntombizandile Mhlola and Mzwandile Vaaiboom, as well as deputy mayor Zoliswa Matana, fully supported the write-off, other ANC councillors like senior councillors Luleka Simon-Ndzele and Crosby Kolela called on the municipal public accounts committee (Mpac) to investigate.
Simon-Ndzele said: “I want us to note of the report and then take the matter to Mpac…Some of the amounts are irrecoverable as some staff members are no longer at BCM. We need to make it a point that when they do the investigation, they divide it into two: the recoverable and the irrecoverable and we deal with consequence management.”
Defending his report, Pakati said it was unacceptable that the city was still dealing with wasteful and fruitless expenditure from 2009 when there were oversight committees in place.
“This is informed by what is presented by management as irrecoverable money. The council has a right to write off…it’s immaterial whether we do this now. My view is that I’m not sure if this exercise has not been undertaken already, but if the council wants to satisfy itself through an investigation, that should not be a big problem for all of us because we are of the view that we are not able to recover this money.
“Either way, you will arrive at the same determination, the council reserves the right to write-off.”
Mpac was instructed to report back on its finding in August.
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