Newcastle Municipality is drowning in debt and driven to paying salaries out of ringfenced infrastructure grant funding for a low-cost housing project, because all its cash reserves have been plundered.
IN AN EXPLOSIVE EXPOSÉ IN THE Newcastle Advertiser in June this year the Caxton local media in-vestigative team revealed exam-ples of the corruption that has set in under ANC rule in that KwaZulu-Natal town – which is undermining governance of the municipality and emptying its treasury.
The paper also described how for the past year the ANC’s regional executive had succeeded in hiding two explosive official forensic reports that detail the corrupt activities of senior party cadres.
These reports echo Noseweek’s earlier reports on the scale of blatant supply-chain corruption that took place in the Tshwane municipality under ANC rule (see noses 198;203;205;207;208;210;234; 237&238), reinforcing the now widely held view that corruption has become the name of the ANC’s game in local government, wherever you look.
Key documents leaked to the Newcastle Advertiser corroborated information gathered from interviews with multiple sources, many of whom have asked to remain anonymous for their safety.
Among the documents is a report on a forensic investigation by the KZN Treasury along with the findings of an inquiry by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) that was concluded a year ago. Neither has been tabled before the council, having been deliberately withheld from the public by the local ANC leadership.
This story is from the September 2019 edition of Noseweek.
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This story is from the September 2019 edition of Noseweek.
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