The City of Tshwane employees implicated in inflating prices for the properties bought by the municipality in 2013 are in hot water after it was recently recommended that they be criminally charged.
FF-Plus councillor Mari Joubert said his party recommended during the council sitting that municipal officials should be criminally charged alongside several internal valuers.
The recommendation, she said, stemmed from a report on land procured by the metro in 2013 that was tabled to the council.
“The report provides a detailed account of the valuation processes followed with the procurement of parts of Hartbeeshoek, Donkerhoek and Derdepoort,” she said.
Joubert said the report showed there was a discrepancy of more than R60 million between the properties’ market-related and valuation prices.
“The metro paid exorbitant, artificially inflated prices for the properties. The FF-Plus insists that the officials involved in these transactions should pay back the money and be criminally charged. The businesses implicated in the matter should also be investigated,” she said.
She said the valuers, who were involved in the transactions, should be brought before the South African Council for the property valuers profession.
“The FF-Plus will do everything in its power to eradicate corruption and the misappropriation of tax money in the Tshwane Metro, and keep fighting for a clean administration,” she said.
Last year, two former ActionSA MMCs inTshwane were accused of meddling in a land acquisition deal involving five properties in Kameeldrift 298-JR, which the municipality wanted to purchase at a cost of R2.5 million.
The implicated former MMCs Andre Le Roux and Kgosietsile Kgosiemang allegedly had a secret meeting with land sellers and escalated the property price from R2.5 m to R3m behind the backs of municipal officials.
The EFF pressed charges of fraud against the two at Brooklyn police station after a leaked letter written by property department group head Verusha Morgan, who complained about the two MMCs, to municipal group head of human settlements Nonto Memela.
Pretoria News
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