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Suspended Amatola Water chief executive officer Vuyo Zitumane has faced off with board members at the state-owned entity in her two-year stint and seemingly wiped the floor with them.
Her suspension is one of the contentious issues that have raised questions about Human Settlements, Water and Sanitation Minister Lindiwe Sisulu’s running of the department.
Zitumane’s latest victim was former Amatola interim chairperson Maxwell Sirenya, who was shown the exit door, but only to be exonerated through an investigation by Outsourced Risk and Compliance Assessment, according to a leaked report.
Sirenya spoke to investigators about the “animosity” between him and Zitumane, saying he found her “extremely domineering”.
After Sirenya’s exit, Sisulu appointed a new interim board for Amatola in January, on the back of allegations that the removed board members had undermined her authority.
Zitumane remained standing.
Read: Lindiwe Sisulu’s week of hell
But Sisulu and Zitumane have now come head to head. And in Sisulu’s corner, she has Victor Tololo, a full-time Samwu shop steward at Amatola, whose reinstatement last year at the minister’s instructions deepened the conflict.
The minister is also armed with several investigative reports putting Zitumane’s widespread “Mrs Fix It” media title into question.
Although the trigger for Zitumane’s suspension last week is the use of R230 million allocated to Amatola for drought relief, it is the reinstatement of Tololo that gave birth to the onslaught against her.
In a report to Sisulu dated October 22 2019, the unhappy board members explained why they disagreed with her instruction to bring back Tololo “unconditionally” and pay him all the money due to him since his dismissal following an investigation in 2016. The board viewed this as fruitless and wasteful expenditure. Sirenya also agreed.
It was alleged that Tololo had his employment as full-time shop steward backdated, conduct found to be fraudulent. The board had also brought in audit firm PriceWaterhouseCoopers, who also reached a similar conclusion, making it two findings against Tololo.
In the middle of the disciplinary process, said the board, more whistle-blower information led to another investigation by PWC and a private investigator, and “uncovered that Tololo was previously sentenced to eight years for armed robbery”, which he had not disclose to his employers.
Following additional charges, he was dismissed and his appeals to the CCMA were unsuccessful.
When she came in as chief executive in 2018, Zitumane opposed the appeals.
The matter ended up in the labour court but it was never to be argued because Tololo was reinstated in September last year.
A dissenting legal opinion, according to the board report, found that Tololo had made a protected disclosure submission implicating the former board chairperson Nokulunga Mqeta, whose arrest by the Hawks in May 2016 was covered extensively in the media.
But the argument that Tololo had been victimised did not sit well with the board members, who believed that he was involved in “dishonest concealment of a criminal record relating to the commission of a violent crime”.
“We understand that the minister’s decision was prompted mainly by her concern to avert a threatened strike,” said the board.
But even with Tololo’s return, the unions were still not happy, claiming that they had reached an agreement with Zitumane that they would help her fight the board, and in return, their demands would be met.
The allegations are contained in an affidavit signed by Tololo in March this year, in which he accused Zitumane of using employees to fight personal battles with the board, leaking information to the media and coercing workers into a strike.
In her affidavit last week, Zitumane said Tololo was “full of lies”, adding that she suspected Sisulu’s adviser Mphumzi Mdekazi was behind the document.
Zitumane alleged that Amatola Water had been captured by Mdekazi, including members for the board dissolved at the weekend. She accused him of lobbying unions, local ANC leaders and businesspeople against her to further his agenda.
She denied allegations that she had said Sisulu was corrupt, but she was irritated by service providers who constantly ran to the minister when they had disagreements with her office, she said.
Although Zitumane said she was referring to sand water extraction company, Empowering Water Solutions (EWS), City Press has seen another letter from a company called Malamiso Projects dated April 2, in which the service provider complained that the tender for water carting was advertised for one day.
EWS was also unhappy with the delays in the implication of its technology to deliver water in the drought-stricken Eastern Cape.
Its system already had Sisulu’s backing and its planning reports paved the way for the release of R230 million to Amatola.
In hindsight, said a company insider, they realised that EWS was deceived to provide supporting evidence for funding when the real intention had always been to split the work with other local business people who did not even have the required technology.
The use of the funds eventually led to the collapse of the relationship between Sisulu and Zitumane.
The budget, issued in February, was meant to harvest rainwater, utilise water tankers and drill boreholes. It would also be used for the Covid-19 coronavirus interventions.
However, according to another leaked report of the Amatola investigations, there was no progress being recorded in terms of delivery, prompting Sisulu to launch a probe on how the money was used and whether it was done lawfully.
The preliminary findings refer to supply chain irregularities, including alleged inflation of prices, according to the report. The final report is expected to be released soon.
But Zitumane said she was being “investigated for refusing to succumb to corrupt activities”. She also suspected that Mdekazi’s motivation and interest in ensuring that Amatola was funded for sand abstraction was to settle an alleged campaign debt of R35 million that Sisulu raked during her failed ANC presidential campaign in 2017.
Mdekazi said he believed sand water extraction was a more effective system for water service delivery. He said Zitumane’s allegations were tantamount to clutching at straws.
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