By Sihle Mavuso
The much-anticipated Section 132 hearing by the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (CoGTA) in eThekwini on Wednesday became heated when ANC mayor Cyril Xaba accused DA committee chairperson Marlaine Nair of using the platform to advance political agendas.
The committee, made up of MPLs from political parties represented in the provincial legislature, was in eThekwini to address governance and service-delivery concerns raised by the Auditor-General.
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Among the issues on the table were the municipality’s hiring of water tankers, which had been flagged by the Auditor-General; its slow response to the plight of victims of the April 2022 floods; and its failure to reduce irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure and hold responsible officials accountable.
The committee also questioned why the municipality continued to award tenders to some blacklisted companies linked to alleged corruption in the ongoing trial of former mayor Zandile Gumede.
City manager Musa Mbhele, chief financial officer Dr Sandile Mnguni, executive director for water services Ednick Msweli and other municipal officials took turns answering questions, with Xaba frequently intervening during the proceedings.
The hearing temporarily came unstuck when Nair cut Mbhele short as he was responding, saying he was giving long-winded answers without the luxury of time. Mbhele took exception, saying he was attempting to provide satisfactory answers.
Xaba then intervened, accusing Nair of using the platform to ambush municipal officials and peddle “gossip” that had already appeared on one of the DA’s Facebook pages.
Nair had raised the issue of private plumbers who have spent the past few weeks picketing outside municipal offices, claiming they have not been paid.
“You see, is this part of the meeting? What you are asking? This gossip is on your website, on your Facebook, I know who is peddling this misrepresentation, some members are actually peddling this. I am taking strong exception to this,” a furious Xaba said before handing the microphone to Mbhele, who was seated to his left.
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DA eThekwini Council, an official party Facebook page, has given the plumbers a platform to air their grievances and has shared videos of the pickets.
Xaba later apologised for his outburst after Nair also apologised, saying official meetings should be conducted in an orderly manner.
Mbhele told the committee the plumbers were falsely claiming they had not been paid, saying municipal records showed that all of them had received payment. He said some of the plumbers appeared to believe they “have a birth right” to tenders from the municipality.
He also denied that the municipality was awarding tenders to blacklisted companies linked to the Gumede trial. Mbhele said one of the companies had successfully approached the courts to have its blacklisting set aside and therefore remained on the municipality’s database.
The tension between Xaba and Nair appeared to have subsided before another disagreement broke out. ANC MPL Mbali Fraser, Deputy Mayor Zandile Myeni, councillor Mdu Nkosi of the IFP and Nkosenhle Madlala then joined the exchange, largely in defence of the municipality.
Xaba again accused Nair of bias.
“You can’t come here with tavern politics, yes! I am sorry because you are raising matters that have no basis on the matters before us. The council had prepared adequately, and I thought that your questions would be based on the questions that you have sent us. But you are going off… raising matters that are not before us,” Xaba seethed.
Madlala said it appeared the meeting was becoming “adversarial” instead of seeking truthful answers. He said they understood it was election season and that everyone wanted to score political points, but urged those taking part to keep the proceedings cordial.
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“As we do that, we must engage on matters of service delivery only,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mnguni said the municipality had taken steps to address irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure and, where necessary, had referred matters to the police for criminal investigation in line with findings and recommendations by the Auditor-General.
“As I have said, we have got a financial misconduct board which is charged with the responsibility of dealing with UIFW, that board is chaired by an independent person, not from within the municipality. They process the consequence management matters, they are supported by the CIIU (the city’s integrity and investigative unit). So, where there is a need for investigation, the CIIU will investigate, and if the recommendations are saying we must open criminal cases, those we have opened during the (2025-2026) financial year. There are 53 cases that are being investigated by our SAPS,” Mnguni told the committee.
In its audit for the 2024/25 financial year, the AG gave the metro an unqualified audit opinion but identified significant procurement and supply-chain management failures. These included R1.54 billion in uncompetitive and unfair procurement deviations and R311.76 million in irregular expenditure linked to specific supply-chain management failures.
Contracts worth R6.16 million were awarded to employees’ spouses or business partners, while contracts worth R3.63 million went to officials employed by other state institutions. Overall, eThekwini recorded about R4.48 billion in irregular expenditure for the financial year.
