Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane says that state capture is not limited to national government, with his party uncovering corruption and nepotism at the three major metros it won in the municipal recent elections.<\/p>\n
The DA won new metros, in Tshwane, Johannesburg and Nelson Mandela Bay in August, and now controls over 50% of local government budget.<\/p>\n
“The ANC\u2019s project of state capture is not just a national government phenomenon. It is not restricted to just Jacob Zuma and his cronies. It permeates throughout every sphere of government,” Maimane said at a press gathering on Sunday.<\/p>\n
The DA lead proceeded to give a snapshot of what he described as some of the ‘rot’, corruption and ‘plunder’ that the party has allegedly uncovered.<\/p>\n
The City of Tshwane<\/strong><\/p>\n Maimane noted that the City of Tshwane government was ‘technically bankrupt’ when the DA took over less than 100 days ago.<\/p>\n “So far, we have discovered that the former Mayor Ramokgopa, enjoyed a R30 million per year discretionary slush fund to spend as he pleased on dispensing patronage and handouts as he saw fit,” he said.<\/p>\n “In the Office of the City Manager, we inherited a structure inflated and bloated to include four Deputy City Managers, eight Regional Executive Directors, and their deputies, carrying a salary bill of R96 million a year.<\/p>\n “The former Mayor\u2019s office wasted an astronomical R90 million on botched upgrades to the Tshwane City Hall, where corruption and kickbacks in the Mayor\u2019s own office have been found and are under investigation by the SAPS after Mayor Solly Msimanga laid criminal charges,” Maimane said.<\/p>\n He said that the City also spent R12 million to upgrade the mayoral house.<\/p>\n “But this all pales in comparison to uncovering the fact that the Mayor\u2019s own office was inflated to employ over 900 people, costing almost R250 million a year in salaries. Many of these were political deployees, including active ANC members.<\/p>\n “This speaks the capture of the government in order to continue patronage networks and hand out money to those connected to the ANC \u2013 at the expense of poor and unemployed South Africans,” Maimane said.<\/p>\n The City of Johannesburg<\/strong><\/p>\n The DA said that the previous administration for the City of Johannesburg have created a massive backlog in infrastructure development, maintenance and a R232 billion funding gap to address capital expenditure needs.<\/p>\n “The previous administration boasted of R100 billion invested in capital expenditure over the next 10 years. This was wholly inadequate and effectively served as a commitment to fail in turning around the economy.<\/p>\n “Rather than addressing priorities, the City focussed itself on speculative investments into dubious economic projects such as mushroom farms and solar powered bakeries using imported mango flour,” Maimane said.<\/p>\n Johannesburg has a housing backlog of 300,000, while only delivering around 3,500 houses per year. At the current pace, it would take over a century to address just the current backlog, the DA said.<\/p>\n “Johannesburg has 180 informal settlements, many of which have no basic services and people who have waited for decades on a housing list which has never been transparent and available to them,” Maimane said.<\/p>\n Nelson Mandela Bay<\/strong><\/p>\n The DA accused Danny Jordaan and his mayoral predecessor in Nelson Mandela Bay\u00a0 of diverting public money for private gain.<\/p>\n “When the DA took office, it immediately became apparent that the ANC falsely presented a large cash bank-balance as a solvent position when in fact it had devastatingly cut all city maintenance to instead put money in the bank,” Maimane said.<\/p>\n He said that in the first weeks, the party discovered contracts entered into for the supply of light bulbs at R600 per bulb, and a splash-out by the former Mayor of R250,000 to get his face onto the front cover of a magazine.<\/p>\n “We then discovered a contract worth R22 million with Mohlaleng Media which duplicated the work of municipal staff and predictably delivered negligible outcomes,” the DA lead said.<\/p>\n “Also in Nelson Mandela Bay we uncovered that over R21 million was spent on a vanity project called the \u2018City of Champions\u2019 that was nothing but a frivolous waste of money with no local government purpose, function or outcome,” he said.<\/p>\n Additional findings in the metro included unfinished IT projects and political appointments despite cases of criminal convictions.<\/p>\n “In the electricity department alone, we have uncovered that 5 of the 6 senior managers were left in acting roles for many months, which created instability and uncertainty. This while the infrastructure and engineering directorate itself had over 160 vacancies which were left unfilled and contributed to poor service delivery for the people of Nelson Mandela Bay,” Maimane said.<\/p>\nMore on politics<\/h3>\n