Cape Town — The Govan Mbeki municipality in Mpumalanga has come under fire for spending R160 00 on upgrading the driving licenses of four employees.
An invoice between February and March showed that a driving school in Secunda was awarded a tender to train drivers and upgrade their licenses. However, the invoice showed that the municipality spent a reported R40 000 to the service provider to train each driver, The Citizen reported.
Municipal spokesperson, Donald Green, denied any irregular expenditure over the handling of the tender and said the normal procurement processes were followed.
“Three bidders responded to the request for a quote and one bidder was disqualified due to noncompliance, while the lowest bidder was appointed,” Green said.
He added that the municipality wanted to ensure the employees were adequately trained through the recognition of prior learning interventions due to several limitations. This included their education and a language barrier as the licenses had to be obtained through their native language from start to end.
He added that the employees were employed by the municipality as light compact truck drivers needing EC1 licenses.
“They had to operate a vehicle up [weighing] to 16 000kg. Now, with the growth of the municipality after the amalgamation of three municipalities into the current Govan Mbeki municipality, a new bigger yellow fleet was purchased [compactor trucks] which require a different code licence of EC (former code 14),” he said.
He added that employees needed to be upskilled to improve their capabilities to operate the bigger machinery.
The DA in Govan Mbeki Local Municipality calls on the Municipal Manager, Elliot Maseko, to institute an investigation against officials who paid R160 000 to upgrade the driving licence of four employees.
Read more: https://t.co/Ou29n8NNwn pic.twitter.com/fqo9usBgCx
— DA Mpumalanga (@DA_Mpumalanga) September 17, 2024
In response, the DA called for the Municipal manager, Elliot Maseko, to initiate an investigation against the officials who paid the R160 000, a statement said.
The party added that the R40 000 per person was far higher than the standard price range between R2 500 and R5 000 to train drivers.
DA spokesperson, Lehlohonolo Madumise, said the municipality owed R4 billion to creditors and currently suffers from constant water and electricity issues.
“Therefore, spending R160 000 to upgrade the driving license of just four employees is illogical. The municipality should be working towards improving its expenditure and revenue collection,” Madumise said.
The department condemned the current ANC administration in the municipality which has negatively impacted service delivery.
“We will not sit back and allow such misconduct to go unaccounted for. Govan Mbeki is financially unstable because of such decisions,” Madumise, added.
The DA said it would write to Maseko and call for an investigation into the matter. The party wanted to ensure that the rule of law is upheld and officials who are implicated in the alleged corruption are brought to book
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
