Publications
Partners
Pietermaritzburg’s high-flying municipal manager, Mxolisi Nkosi, has been suspended, but he will still be paid his full salary of nearly R2 million a year.
The resolution to kick him out was taken because he allegedly used proceeds from a nearly R300 million infrastructure upgrade to line his pockets.
The decision was taken at a full council meeting after a notice of intention to suspend was served on Nkosi, a former political adviser to KwaZulu-Natal Economic Development MEC Mike Mabuyakhulu.
A council statement said that it had decided to suspend Nkosi after an investigation into alleged corruption on his part by the department of cooperative governance and traditional affairs (Cogta) in terms of section 106 of the Local Government Municipal Systems Act.
The statement said council wrote to Nkosi informing him of its intention to suspend him. Council took the decision on Friday to do so, on full pay. He earns R1 982 171 a year.
After the failed 2013 project, the city got back only about R2 million of the more than R290 million it had given to the Independent Development Trust for the infrastructure upgrade. The trust pulled out of the project and the city has taken it over. Other issues contributing to the suspension are understood to include the city’s parking meter contract.
City spokesperson Nqobile Madonda confirmed on Friday that Nkosi, who was appointed in 2011, had been suspended. Madonda told City Press that allegations of impropriety in the failed upgrade process were among the reasons for Nkosi’s suspension.
Cogta spokesperson Lennox Mabaso said in a statement that Nkosi was suspended after whistle-blowers had given the department information.
Last year, KwaZulu-Natal Premier Senzo Mchunu named Nkosi, a former municipal manager at Kokstad, the best municipal manager in the province.
From the time he was appointed, Nkosi was backed by the political parties across the board for his successes in turning around the municipality in 2009 after political infighting in the city’s ANC had brought it to political and financial collapse.
This week, his ANC backers said he was the victim of a purge of civil servants and councillors who had supported Mchunu in his unsuccessful bid for a second term as ANC provincial chairperson.
“This is all because he campaigned openly for Senzo,’’ said an ANC-aligned businessman who asked not to be named. “The issues have been there for years, but the leadership did nothing. Why now?”
City Press has seen a dossier on the Independent Development Trust deal that was submitted to the city and the province by whistle-blowers. It shows the agency completed only seven of 35 sections of the project.
The city paid the trust R292.3 million, which included the trust’s management fees. It was refunded R2.9 million when the project was cancelled. The rest was “expended on various projects”, Madonda said at the time.
The matter ended up in court when Note Trading, the consultant the Independent Development Trust used as project manager, tried to force the development agency to pay it R23 million it claims it is still owed. Neither the city nor the trust were willing to talk about the legal action.
In an address to council on Friday, Nkosi said he was “deeply hurt’’ and in “absolute shock” . . . and that Cogta had caused “harm of unimaginable proportions’’ to him and his family. He said the city’s clean audit and his award for best provincial municipal manager was evidence of his performance.
“I want to assure this council and the public that the majority of the matters raised in the MEC’s section 106 investigation belong to the 2012, 2013 and 2014 financial years, and would not have affected the audit outcome for 2015. If it meant risking my life and being ready to take the bullet for this municipality, I did it.”
