Durban — DA councillor Thys Janse van Rensburg, uThukela Municipality’s municipal public accounts committee chairperson, said the committee had been forced to summon municipal manager Bongani Mnguni to appear before it on Monday.
Janse van Rensburg issued the committee’s resolution in a media statement on Sunday.
The committee took this decision after the municipal manager failed on numerous occasions to provide it with a report the committee had requested from him in connection with fruitless and wasteful expenditure at the municipality totalling a whopping R237 million.
Janse van Rensburg said the committee was mandated to exercise oversight of the dealings of the municipality by, among other functions, investigating fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
Janse van Rensburg added that the committee was then mandated to report back to council on its findings and recommendations.
Addressing the impasse, Janse van Rensburg said: “The uThukela (committee) was forced to postpone its planned October sitting twice due to the lack of forthcoming information and reports from the various departments.
“Therefore, the (committee) was left with no option but to exercise its powers contained in its terms of reference to summon the (municipal manager), who is the accounting officer for the municipality, to come and appear before it to explain why information is not forthcoming in line with legislation.
“As the DA representatives in uThukela, we are thus deeply concerned by this development.
“Therefore, as its councillor and the (committee) chairperson, I will provide the (committee) with all reasonable support to ensure its functioning as an oversight committee.
“The DA will therefore not hesitate to escalate the matter to the KwaZulu-Natal co-operative governance and traditional affairs MEC if we find that the rules and regulations were wilfully ignored,” Janse van Rensburg threatened.
All attempts to obtain comment from the uThukela municipal manager’s office proved fruitless.