Durban — The eThekwini Municipality spent a staggering R1.2 billion on public tenders in February. This was revealed in a report at the full council on Tuesday.
In its report, the eThekwini Municipality’s finance committee noted that R1 243 748 480 was the total value of tenders issued during February 2024.
IFP councillor Jonathan Annipen said the matter was of concern because of the increase in the number of Section 36 public tender awards. He said these should be given on an emergency basis only.
“It is very concerning that these awards have increased, yet none of them relate to service delivery. Residents in Phoenix, Westham and Redfern did not have electricity for 14 days.
“Residents in Clayfield did not have electricity for seven days, yet there was not any use of such powers by the municipality to give urgency to those repairs by awarding tenders to private contractors to come out to do the repairs.
“Yet, when there are instances where there are no urgent matters, the municipality has used Sections 116 and 38 to give out these tenders,” Annipen added.
People in management do what they please and there is no accountability to eThekwini residents, he said.
“They are being aided by the smaller parties who continue to support the ANC as they make these clandestine moves and affect the financial well-being of the municipality,” he said.
DA eThekwini caucus chief whip, councillor Yogis Govender, said: “As the DA, we are here to ensure that the ANC/ EFF coalition-led municipality in eThekwini does not withhold from its citizens the services that they are legally entitled to, nor does it embezzle taxpayer funds.
“Having said that, we want the municipality to submit reports to us regarding the allocation of tenders for projects that include enough information about the wards and company registration numbers that are carrying out each project.
“The City has set aside millions for flood-damaged infrastructure in addition to a tender for the provision of materials for the construction of 1000 new homes. We demand specifics, not just titbits of information.”
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