Anger at plan to scrap finance committee

Barely 24 hours after the swearing in of the new eThekwini council, the ANC is moving to scrap the city’s key finance and procurement oversight committee – responsible for monitoring the awarding of tenders and expenditure. This has sparked anger among the opposition, with an analyst warning the move could open the door to corruption. The scrapping of the committee was part of a wider rearranging of council committees and appointing of councillors to serve on the committees. The move has been engineered by the ANC’s eThekwini region, which wants a council executive committee (Exco) sub-committee to handle oversight on finances and tenders. In terms of this reorganisation of oversight committees, the city officials responsible for finances and tenders would now report directly to the Exco sub-committee, to be headed by newly-elected mayor Zandile Gumede.

This will be a departure from the previous term when officials reported to the full council and all councillors freely scrutinised the financial expenditure on behalf of ratepayers. The Daily News understands the matter has since been referred to the ANC KwaZulu-Natal to make a decision after it apparently raised its own concerns. Should the move be approved, smaller parties will not have an opportunity to scrutinise municipal finances and tenders before the committee because they were without representation in Exco. Only a few councillors – those in Exco from ANC, DA and IFP – would then be able to play a serious role in the oversight of tenders, especially those awarded urgently. There were fears the move would deprive the city of adequate warning systems to pick up possible irregular spending and corruption. The rearrangement of the oversight committees first surfaced on Monday when an ANC press release laid bare the intention of the ruling party’s regional leaders to re-jig oversight committees.

It said deputy mayor Fawzia Peer would, in addition to ceremonial duties, be chairwoman of the committee previously led by Gumede, which oversees the metro police and fire department. Sipho Kaunda, former municipal public accounts committee chairman, will now be heading the economic development portfolio. A new oversight committee dealing with community services, youth and women will be introduced and headed by ANC Women’s League secretary Zama Sokhabashe. On Wednesday, ANC regional secretary Bheki Ntuli spoke to the Daily News He said the deputy city manager and officials in finance would, under the new arrangement, report directly to Exco rather than council. He explained smaller parties not represented in Exco had no reason to worry as Exco decisions were not final.

Zwakele Mncwango, the DA leader, said his party wanted the oversight committee from the previous terms to be retained. “Smaller parties won’t be represented. It means small parties won’t have a voice on finances…It is unfair.” Mncwango said the deferral of the allocation of councillors to committees was a sign the ANC was more interested in leadership positions than service delivery and warned that moving economic development away from the deputy mayor could be dangerous. “You need someone to be the face of the economy. You can’t bring anyone to address investors,” Mncwango said. “I don’t think Zandile appeals to the business community,” he added. The IFP’s Mdu Nkosi said his party did not support finance and procurement being moved to Exco as a sub-committee. “It is going to create problems. There will be no justice,” he said.

Nkosi also said the move would compromise the work of Exco members, who would be overloaded with other responsibilities. Paul Hoffman, head of Institute for Accountability in Southern Africa, said the planned reorganisation seemed not to have scant regard for principles of openness, accountability and responsiveness at the level of Constitution. “What I see is an attempt to limit accountability, restrict responsiveness and deflect openness with regard to finance matters,” Hoffman said.