Who fed police minister dud info?
EThekwini Municipality is in hot water for allegedly lying to Police Minister Nathi Nhleko about its former IT chief.
|||Durban - The eThekwini Municipality’s administration is in the firing line for apparently lying when providing information to Police Minister Nathi Nhleko about an official implicated in the Manase graft report.
Nhleko, responding to a parliamentary question last month relating to the Anti-Corruption Task Team probing councillors’ and officials’ criminal action, said no action had been taken against Jacqui Subban because she was no longer in the city’s employ.
But the city has now revealed that Subban, its former information technology head, is still on its payroll, despite damning allegations against her in the report.
DA MP Dean Macpherson asked Nhleko in Parliament what action had been taken against the fingered officials.
Responding specifically on the “duplicate payment to Dimension Data”, Nhleko said: “Subban has subsequently resigned and therefore no disciplinary steps were taken. There was no prejudice to the municipality and this matter was filed on 2014/05/15.”
This contradicted a response given to The Mercury on Tuesday by city manager S’bu Sithole when asked about Subban’s employment status.
Subban “never resigned” from the municipality, he said. This was also confirmed by Subban last night, who added that she still worked “in the same department”.
Approached for clarity, Police Ministry spokesman Musa Zondi said whatever was contained in the parliamentary reply was information provided to Nhleko by the municipality.
The Manase report, released in 2013, found that Subban had irregularly awarded two section 36 contracts to H2O Networks (South Africa) Pty Ltd for the installation of fibre-optic cable. It was recommended that disciplinary action be taken against her for this reason, and also for negligence which resulted in duplicate payments of R2.6 million being made to Dimension Data on September 2 and 10, 2008.
“If a person has been through disciplinary processes and it finds whatever it finds, I can’t interfere with that. It is an independent process which was set up. She never resigned,” Sithole said.
He said Subban was a “project executive” in the city’s strategy office. “I feel for her. We don’t want to make this a double jeopardy. If somebody has gone through a disciplinary process, and there was a sentence meted, I can’t change that outcome.”
DA provincial and eThekwini caucus leader Zwakele Mncwango said he would write to Sithole seeking clarity on the response given by the minister.
“The question is: Who gave the minister these answers? The trickier part is: Who is misleading the country? You answer questions in the National Assembly and you give the wrong information, you should be held accountable.”
He said he would urge mayor James Nxumalo to account for the blunder and institute disciplinary hearings against Sithole as the city’s accounting officer.
“He must prove that he did not mislead the National Assembly. He must clean his name.”
Mncwango said he had e-mailed Sithole earlier, asking if Subban was still an eThekwini employee, but had not received a reply. Confronted in the executive committee meeting on Tuesday, Sithole explained to Mncwango that “e-mail was not the appropriate platform to respond to this”.
Mdu Nkosi of the IFP said Sithole could have been honest in his response to The Mercury as he had taken over the reins in the midst of the Manase findings and the subsequent upheavals.
He was adamant that Subban was not the only official implicated in the investigation who was still working in the municipality.
He said it was shocking that the report had turned out a damp squib, despite ratepayers’ money having been plundered by corrupt officials who were let off the hook.
The Mercury
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