Durban — EThekwini municipal public accounts committee (MPAC) chairperson Thami Xuma has called for an investigation into the alleged collusion between the City’s human settlements and infrastructure unit and a Durban-based tar-producing company to collapse the city plant with the intention to procure services from the company.
After his oversight visit to the tar manufacturing plant in Clairwood, south of Durban, Xuma said he had been informed that the plot to render the plant unusable was allegedly hatched to allow the City to issue a tender to this company, in exchange for kickbacks.
He said he was shocked and disappointed that ratepayers were forking out billions of rand for road maintenance services by private companies since the plant collapsed several years ago, whereas the City has the capacity to produce its own tar and paving material.
“I am taking up the matter with both the current human settlements and infrastructure chairperson, Themba Mvubu, and CIIU (city integrity investigation unit) head Mbuso Ngcobo. I need their intervention here. The ratepayers must know why the municipality was procuring services from a private company while it had the capacity to produce its own. This is corruption on a massive scale and I will get to the bottom of it,” said Xuma.
Furthermore, he said the plant had 75 staff who go to work and sign the attendance register and then do nothing almost the whole day, except when the private company needed them to collect the tar, which only happened if their work is awarded to the company. He said that out of 25 trucks, only three were licensed to be on the road, which he said was a further indication of the sabotaging of the plant for ulterior motives.
He said that the City would not have had the problems of potholes everywhere if it had managed the plant.
The human settlements and infrastructure political head councillor, who is also the EFF leader, Themba Mvubu, said he would visit the plant on Thursday and conduct his own investigation.
The infrastructure decay in eThekwini has been a bone of contention between the opposition and the governing ANC. It also led to the breakdown of working relations between then-deputy mayor Philani Mavundla and mayor Mxolisi Kaunda, which resulted in Mavundla’s dismissal by the ANC.
After leaving the City, Mavundla ran a vigorous campaign visiting and filming all the dilapidated infrastructure.
The City’s failure to maintain infrastructure was believed to be one of the reasons that prompted intervention by the national government, which partially placed the City under administration by applying section 154 and sent former director-general in the Presidency Dr Cassius Lubisi to rescue the sinking ship.
WhatsApp your views on this story to 071 485 7995
Daily News