The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the suspension of Ugu District Municipality Municipal Manager, Danpalan Devraj Naidoo. This after the release of the Section 106 Report conducted by Tsalach Incorporated. Although Naidoo’s suspension is a good call, it is long overdue.
The DA has been the only party to call for a forensic investigation into Ugu’s financial management since 2016. Taxpayers’ money has been mismanaged, misappropriated, and looted with no consequence management. This has resulted in the collapse of the provision of water and sanitation to businesses, and residents. Naidoo has enjoyed protection for far too long from his political deployment whilst the residents continued to suffer and businesses collapsing.
All those who are implicated in wrongdoing, who are no longer in the employ of the municipality must face the full might of the law. We call for the immediate termination of contractors that are implicated in the Tsalach Report and that they are compelled to pay back the money for the tenders that were allegedly fraudulently awarded.
To restore confidence in Ugu, we reiterate our call to the MEC for Corporative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Sipho Hlomuka, to place the Municipality under administration with immediate effect and assign a capable and competent administrator.
The Acting Municipal Manager now has the important job of stabalising the Municipality by reviewing the management decision to discontinue water provision to innocent people and clean up the mess in the billing system.