The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has welcomed the arrest of Theletsi Roger Nkhumise, the former municipal manager at Moretele municipality in the North West.
Nkhumise, 49, was nabbed on Friday over the allegations of committing fraud amounting to over R200-million. This he did allegedly by awarding information technology (IT) tenders illegally.
He appeared at the Moretele regional court on the same day on four counts of contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act and irregular awarding of a multimillion-rand IT contract in 2016. He was ordered to return to court on August 17.
SIU spokesperson Kaizer Motaung said on Monday: “Nkhumise was arrested on Friday and immediately appeared at the Moretele regional court.
“Nkhumise is accused of unlawfully appointing Flame IT Strategy to render ICT services to the Moretele municipality, which is largely rural, to the tune of approximately R215-million. The municipality inherited the contract for ICT services from Madibeng local municipality.”
Motaung said Nkhumise’s arrest followed an SIU probe that revealed that the IT company was allegedly appointed without a lawful bidding process. According to Motaung, the probe also revealed that the pricing for the contract was allegedly also different from the pricing of the previous inherited contract.
Motaung said: “The arrest of Nkhumise followed an investigation conducted by the SIU which revealed that the municipality increased the scope of work with two addendums to the original contract without following processes governing municipal procurement of goods and services.
“Furthermore, the SIU investigation revealed that the price from that of the original contract between Madibeng municipality and Flame IT are definitely not in sync with the pricing between Moretele municipality and Flame IT. Madibeng paid Flame IT approximately R64-million for a similar service.
“The SIU probe revealed that Moretele is paying way more than what Madibeng municipality paid Flame IT for a similar service.”
Motaung added: “The SIU was authorised to investigate the tender following the signing of proclamation of R.7 of 2019 by President Cyril Ramaphosa. In line with the [SIU’s] and Special Tribunal’s Act 74 of 1996, the SIU referred evidence pointing to a criminal action to the National Prosecuting Authority for further action.”
Motaung said the SIU has instituted a civil action in the Special Tribunal to review and set aside the contract.
“This will pave the way for the state’s only anti-corruption, forensic investigation and civil litigation agency to recover financial losses suffered by the municipality due to negligence and corruption.”
This is a developing story…
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