EMALAHLENI TO BE INVESTIGATED

EMALAHLENI TO BE INVESTIGATED

BY STAFF REPORTER
The Minister of CoGTA, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma has directed the Mpumalanga CoGTA department to investigate eMalahleni municipality over allegations of paying its municipal manager and section 56 managers at maximum limits for a category 6 municipality. This comes after Dlamini-Zuma, through a written reply to a question by DA’s Sonja Boshoff, found that remuneration packages of the municipal manager and other six senior managers were above the gazetted threshold. It was revealed that the municipal manager, for the 2017/18 financial year, was paid R1,9 87 402 instead of a prescribed R1,464 332 a year while the other senior managers were paid between R1 415 047 and R1 596 747 a year. According to the Municipal Systems Act of 2000, the upper limits of the annual remuneration packages payable to category 6 municipal managers is R1 464 332 and R1 188 638 for managers directly accountable to municipal managers. “It is evident that the municipal manager and all senior managers are remunerated above the prescribed threshold,” she said in a statement. “This action contravene the Notice and constitutes an overpayment in terms of item 11 (1) of the Notice. Item 11 (1) of the Notice enjoins the municipality to recover any overpayment arising from the implementation of the Notice.”
“As the malpractice has only been brought to the attention of the Minister, it is submitted that the MEC for CoGTA in Mpumalanga be requested to institute corrective measures in this regard,” she said. Department’s spokesperson, Lindiwe Msibi said investigators have already been dispatched to Emalahleni. “The MEC has intervened in terms of section 106 (1) (b) of the Municipal Systems Act in the municipality. An investigation team has been appointed in terms of the mentioned legislation to investigate these allegations,” she said.
“The department will allow the legal processes to play out, and those recommendations will be implemented without fear or favour on all those implicated in order to recover what the Municipality has lost, from their current incomes or pensions,” Msibi said.
Sonja Boshoff, DA member of the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), they want the councillors who approved this irregular expenditure should also be held accountable as they were aware that they are in contravention of the notice. “Furthermore, the provincial MEC for CoGTA, Busisiwe Shiba, should also be held to account as it is clear that she has no idea of what is going on in her department or at this municipality,” she said.

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