SIU exposes widespread municipal corruption, flags R58bn in potential recoveries

By Simon Nare

The Standing Committee on Public Accounts has heard evidence of rampant corruption in municipalities, with tender fraud, procurement irregularities, unlawful appointment of service providers, missing tender documents and widespread irregular expenditure emerging as recurring trends.

This came as the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) briefed the committee in the National Assembly on Wednesday.

The SIU presented findings from investigations conducted in municipalities across Gauteng, Free State, North West and KwaZulu-Natal, revealing that it had probed 11 of the 13 municipalities identified for investigation.

Acting SIU head Leonard Lekgetho said the investigations uncovered widespread contraventions of the Municipal Financial Management Act (MFMA), including failure to follow due processes, misconduct by bid committee members, financial mismanagement, non-compliance with municipal policies, inflated pricing and irregular conduct by officials.

He said these issues were consistent across municipalities in all four provinces.

In total, 19 investigations were conducted involving 11 municipalities, with 15