Rand West Municipality should suspend Goba immediately - Maile
Gauteng MEC for Cooperative Governance Lebogang Maile is calling for the suspension of the manager of the Rand West City Local Municipality, Themba Goba.
This comes after a report into the municipality revealed that Goba mismanaged the finances of the municipality to the tune of R1.5 billion.
Maile briefed the media in Sandon on Thursday morning.
The report, headed by Advocate William Mokhare, also revealed that Goba committed gross misconduct when he lied about not being investigated by the Hawks.
Maile said during Goba's tenure as municipal manager, from July 2017 to date, a total of R1.5 billion was mismanaged.
"In that during this subsequent financial years, 2017/18; 2018/19 and 2019/20 unauthorised, irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure ballooned to over R1.5 billion, arising from irregular appointment of service providers, late payment or non-payment of service providers thus attracting interest running into millions of erands, fraudulent
appointment of service providers and fraudulent payment of service providers.
"It should be noted that the municipal manager did not steal R 1,5 billion, but his mismanagement of the finances refers to his failure, as the accounting officer, to observe and comply with the applicable financial management legislation such as the MFMA, when dealing with the finances of the municipality," he said.
The report called on the council of the municipality to immediately suspend Goba pending an investigation.
"Given the fact that council has shown reluctance to do so in the past as evidenced in this report, should council not take the necessary steps as aforesaid, the provincial executive should intervene in terms of section 139 and appoint an administrator who will ensure that executive obligations of the municipality are performed diligently and without delay," said Maile.
