The Makana Council is investigating allegations that a mayoral committee member has benefitted unduly from the municipality’s programme to fix houses hit by the 2008 tornado.
The Makana Council is investigating allegations that a mayoral committee member has benefitted unduly from the municipality’s programme to fix houses hit by the 2008 tornado.
During its meeting last week the council instructed Municipal Manager Ntombi Baart to immediately investigate allegations that a house belonging to councillor Thuleka Ngeleza, head of the council’s corporate services committee, benefitted from the municipality’s programme.
The investigation was made after from a complaint was lodged by Democratic Alliance councillor Lena May that the municipality fixed Ngeleza’s house while there are still homeless families in her ward 11 whose houses were damaged damaged by the tornado.
Baart told the meeting that she was not aware of Ngeleza personally benefitting from the programme but rather that a house belonging to Ngeleza’s relevative benefitted from the programme.
However, councillor Zamuxolo Peter, who heads the council’s land and housing committee, said Baart should investigate the matter immediately.
The council agreed with him unanimously. Initially May was adjudged as “out of order” by council speaker Rachel Madinda when she made references to a councillor who benefitted from the programme at the expense of desperate residents.
Madinda told May to refrain from using innuendo and asked her to identify the affected councillor by name.
May had earlier expressed her dismay at the council’s decision to prioritise rebranding the municipality over basic service delivery, arguing that the council should have rather spent the money on delivering houses to the residents.
Attempts to speak to Ngeleza drew a blank as she did not return any messages from Grocott’s Mail. ANC councillor Luyanda Nase said that the family whose house in Ward 5 was uprooted by last year’s storm remains stranded as nothing had been done by the municipality to alleviate their plight.
Baart responded by saying there is no budget for rebuilding the house but a recomendation had been sent for the consideration of the mayor Vumile Lwana.
Lwana clarified that he is not responsible for housing and that Dabula Njilo, the technical and infrastructural services director, should be dealing with this issue.
He said he only intervened to build a house for an Alicedale woman whose house was burnt down because she was vulnerable to crime.
“She had been exposed to rape and such crimes,” he said. He added that he had wanted to “smuggle” the construction of the house in Nase’s ward into an initiative by Makana Brick and Tile when the company wanted to test a new brick.
“They applied [to the municipality]for a serviced site to test a new brick and I wanted to put the house forward,” he said.
Lwana said he has been trying to get an appointment with Housing MEC Nombulelo Mabandla for a while and that his attempts have not been successful. He promised that he will include members of the affected family in his delegation to Mabandla when he gets the appointment.
Comments from Makana spokesperson Thandy Matebese had not been received at the time of going to print.
