The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality (NMB) runs the risk of losing out on more than R590 million of an equitable share from the National Treasury.
The monies are withheld until the metro deals with the issues around the appointment of Anele Qaba, its former Executive Director for Economic Development.
Qaba, who left the municipality a few months ago with a R3 million pay-out, was recently appointed as the CEO of the Mandela Bay Development Agency, a municipal entity.
Anele Qaba and the metro eventually parted ways after a R3 million payout, following a protracted disciplinary process.
Qaba, who faced allegations of financial misconduct, was cleared by the disciplinary board.
However, findings from an auditing firm refuted the outcome of the process.
To avoid another lengthy disciplinary process, the council decided on a settlement. Three months later, Qaba is moved back into the metro.
National Treasury registered this anomaly and demands an investigation into his appointment.
The DA Council leader in the Nelson Mandela Bay municipality, Retief Odendaal, accordingly warned the development agency about appointing Qaba.
“We’ve seen this movie before in the financial year 2020-2021, where national treasury held an amount of up to R1.6 billion from the city because of our failure to adhere to some requests that they had. And at that stage, it had a severe impact on the city, impact on service delivery that we’re probably still feeling today. I think that it’s a very sad indictment that something that should not have happened at that stage is happening twice in such a short period of time,” says Odendaal.
In addition to risking losing the equitable share, the metro can also lose more than R350 million in various service delivery-related grants.
DA councillor, Kabelo Mogatosi, says the Qaba issue will stifle new projects.
“There is no project that can be implemented because there are no funds. Supply processes cannot start because there are no funds available in the NMB account. So, until such a time that we’ve got funds in the account, then supply chain processes can start. Secondly, where you are about to start new projects, you have to obviously start off with your advertisement of the tenders those also cannot go out.”
While the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality and the National Treasury are still at loggerheads, the NMB’s spokesperson, Kupido Baron, says “The allegations that we did not respond to national treasury is untrue. We infact responded to them that the matter is under investigation and started an internal process to address it. The MBDA representative committee chaired by Deputy Executive Mayor Babalwa Lubishe looked at the correspondence and made recommendations that will be given to the executive mayor, for a response to MBDA, in the interim. We are still engaging with national treasury.”
Despite several efforts, the Nelson Mandela Bay Development Agency refused to comment.
