• Contracts worth R14.9million, payments of R17.5million without proper procedures
• Deliberate MFMA contraventions and criminal offences under Section 173
• Councillors, implicated officials must be referred to the NPA
(Please note Tim Brauteseth, MPL sound bite in English)
A KZN COGTA portfolio committee Section 132 hearing in Nongoma Local Municipality has exposed the Auditor General’s (AG) findings that the municipality awarded contracts worth R14.9 million without a properly constituted Bid Adjudication Committee and paid R17.5million without signed Supply Chain Management (SCM) documentation.
Given this municipality’s poor track record, these appear to be deliberate contraventions of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) and constitute criminal offences under Section 173.
The MFMA is clear: officials who wilfully or negligently fail to prevent unauthorised, irregular, fruitless, or wasteful expenditure are guilty of an offence.
Nongoma Municipality’s leadership presided over R60.1million in irregular expenditure and R57.9million in unauthorised expenditure in 2024/25, with zero recovery. Payments were even made on expired contracts, while preference points, tax compliance, and contractor performance monitoring were ignored.
The municipality’s Section 132 presentation attempted to gloss over the failures, claiming “credible performance reporting” and “strong revenue management.” This is contradicted by the AG’s evidence of material misstatements, creditors unpaid for 193 days, and 59% of receivables impaired.
While it appears that the acting Municipal Manager brought in to fix the mess is doing his best, the task requires additional resources and effort.
The DA, as a responsible partner within KZN’s Government of Provincial Unity (GPU) therefore demands:
• Full transparency and the release of COGTA’s Section 106 investigation, which has been finalised for some time but is yet to be made public.
• The immediate referral of all councillors and implicated officials in the Section 106 investigation to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) under MFMA Section 173.
Nongoma’s residents deserve accountability, not excuses. The DA will continue to fight for clean governance, lawful procurement, and criminal prosecution of those who abuse public funds.