Durban — During a period spanning 36 months, former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede, her city manager, the deputy head of DSW (Durban Solid Waste Unit, former deputy head of Supply Chain Management (SCM) and a councillor managed an enterprise that fraudulently bled the city of millions.
This is what the State set out to prove in the trial against Gumede and 17 others as well as four companies who were the main contractors in the DSW tender in question.
Gumede and her co-accused face more than 2 000 charges, including conspiracy to commit corruption, corruption, fraud, money laundering, racketeering, contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act and contravention of the Municipal Systems Act; amounting to over R300 million in relation to a DSW tender.
In the Durban High Court on Monday, State advocate Hazel Siramen in her opening address said Gumede, Mondli Mthembu, Sipho Nzuza, Allan Abbu and Sandile Ngcobo managed and participated in the affairs of the enterprise.
She said the rest of accused and those implicated who turned State witnesses participated in the affairs of the enterprise.
Siramen said from August 2016 to July 2019 the main purpose of the enterprise was to capture, monopolise and manipulate the SCM system of the municipality for the DSW tender, where it was alleged accused 1 to 22, through acts of fraud and corruption, achieved this objective.
"The accused associated themselves with the enterprise by facilitating the illegal tender of the DSW contract to the four service providers who would invoice the municipality for payments. The accused shared a common goal of enriching themselves from the proceeds of the payments and/or to create benefits to persons and\or juristic entities proximate to or aligned to accused 1 and 2 and/or a specific faction of a political organisation namely the ANC," she said.
Siramen said the accused had a common purpose that existed over a period of approximately 36 months.
"The unlawful activities consisted of acts committed by the accused as set out in the indictment."
The trial is currently under way and on the stand testifying is Mbuso Ngcobo, the head of the City Integrity and Investigations of the eThekwini Municipality and the complainant in this matter.
He is the State's first witness out of an expected 122.
Ngcobo explained to the court processes that follow once any tip-off was given regarding corruption and how tips came to be investigated.
He said management under him compiled a report that was handed to him and he then allocated the case to an investigator.
He said the city had a panel of forensic investigators appointed through SCM policies and processes this despite the city's limited resources.
Explaining how and who investigated a case whether internally or externally he said the team looked at the amount involved in the matter and its seriousness including the nature of the charges.
"We look at resources needed to investigate. There are variety of factors looked at but it depends on each individual case. The forensic company given the case work is chosen from the panel. The management team makes sure work is distributed equitably. They recommend the company and I make the final decision."
He said from 2017 to 2019 there was an existing panel.
"We had to use one of the companies from this panel in relation to this case.There's somebody who brought the allegations to our reception with a pile of documents," said Ngcobo.
He is currently continuing with his testimony.
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