In recent weeks Grocott’s Mail has carried a series of articles linked to the suspension of Makana Municipality’s Chief Financial Officer – the CFO.
In recent weeks Grocott’s Mail has carried a series of articles linked to the suspension of Makana Municipality’s Chief Financial Officer – the CFO.
It has been a difficult story to piece together because we have had to rely on bits of information leaked to us, or on vague comments made at Council meetings. For example, at a special Council meeting on 27 June, Mayor Zamuxolo Peter said that the CFO was under precautionary suspension “because it became evident that there is reasonable suspicion that CFO has avoided or neglected to follow prescribed procedures in relation to the appointment of various service providers”.
Yes, but what does that mean? We are not exactly sure what that means, even though our municipal reporter has asked many questions of all role players concerned. Even the CFO is not sure what he has been accused of. We know this because we asked him. We think the Mayor’s statement means that the Municipal Manager thinks that the CFO might not have done what he was supposed to do, so just in case they are right, they are not letting the CFO come into his office and do his work. We are not sure about what is going in City Hall, but to borrow the Mayor’s own terminology, “there is a reasonable suspicion” that someone, or some people, have “avoided or neglected to follow prescribed procedures” in relation to some big contract.
We believe that something shady is going on because people are not talking. If everything were above board, then everyone would be happy to talk to the media. But there have been no press releases, media conferences or explanations as to why such a senior official should be suspended. If there was a good reason for his suspension, someone would have told us about it. We can therefore safely conclude that the man was suspended for no good reason.
Is there corruption somewhere in this mess? Yes, we are certain of it. In fact, if the current City Hall leadership could show us a clean bill of health we would be thunderstruck. Corruption is so widespread in almost every facet of local and national government that no one blinks an eye as newspapers reveal, almost on a daily basis, new scandals at the highest levels of virtually every administration in the country. It has already become not quite a news event when we discover that yet another senior official has been caught with both his hands in the till. It would be bigger news, in fact it would a major headline, if any government institution could show that it was largely free of this pervasive evil.
All that any government department would have to do to affirm its bona fides would be to simply open itself up to public scrutiny. This is exactly the opposite of the government’s current agenda, as it is trying its best to push through Parliament a Protection of Information Bill designed primarily to protect corrupt government officials.
