Calling for the removal of your comrades is one thing, but actually removing them is quite something else. Moreover, some VBS-linked politicians in Limpopo seem to be making a comeback in the ANC.
Under Letsie’s watch Merafong lost R50 million of the municipality’s money in the collapse of VBS. Under Maneli’s watch the West Rand District lost R77 million.
Both municipalities now face severe cashflow constraints as well as the collapse of basic service delivery.
Yet Letsie held on to her mayoral chain, while Maneli was promoted to Parliament in 2019. He is now the chairman of the parliamentary portfolio committee on communication.
Mayors of municipalities that deposited funds in VBS can hardly plead ignorance of the law or the financial decisions of municipal officials.
As far back as October 2016 the DA MP Kevin Mileham uncovered the first unlawful deposits in VBS, at which point National Treasury confirmed that the Municipal Finance Management Act does not allow for deposit of municipal funds in mutual banks. Find a copy of the answer here.
But Merafong proceeded to make further VBS deposits beyond this point, and both it and the West Rand District made no attempts to recoup money from the bank until the bank had already started to collapse.
The DA renews our call for the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) to fast-track the prosecutions of VBS-linked municipal officials and politicians. These are low hanging fruit.
As we have said before: section 173 of the Municipal Finance Management Act, which criminalises financial misconduct short of fraud and corruption, is a powerful weapon in the armoury of the NPA that has hardly been used.
Maybe if VBS crooks had been prosecuted back in 2019, other crooks in Gauteng and elsewhere would have been deterred from looting Covid relief funds