Municipal officials facing corruption charges have been allowed to leave and join other municipalities, but this may soon be a thing of the past.
A NEW law will soon be on its way to President Cyril Ramaphosa’s desk to clamp down on municipal officials involved in corruption from easily moving over and joining other municipalities without being held accountable.
The chairperson of the select committee on cooperative governance, traditional affairs, water, sanitation and human settlements in the National Council of Provinces (NCOP), China Dodovu, confirmed that they had passed this key piece of legislation.
He said the Municipal Systems Amendment Bill would go before the House in the next two weeks and then to Ramaphosa to be signed into law.
His committee adopted the bill this week and it deals with cracking down on senior municipal officials facing corruption charges, evading accountability by joining other councils.
Dodovu said that time was up for them and once signed into law by Ramaphosa it would soon put an end to this practice.
Officials facing corruption charges in municipalities have been allowed to leave and join other municipalities. But Dodovu said that would be a thing of the past.
He said that people leave municipalities when they face serious fraud and corruption charges.
“Yesterday, I submitted a report to the chairperson of the NCOP (Amos Masondo) and then the House will sit to consider this piece of legislation. Once it is adopted it will go to the president to be signed into law. From the side of Parliament we are done. The intention is to stop this job-hopping of people after committing gross financial misconduct,” said Dodovu.
He said they wanted the NCOP to approve it quickly so that it can go to Ramaphosa.
The new councils, which would be installed in the next few days, would have to implement it.
Dodovu said they would keep a close eye on municipalities to implement the law to prevent corruption, and to stop people facing corruption charges from moving to other municipalities.
He said they were also following the Constitutional Court deadline which asked in 2019 that Parliament finalise it within two years.
“Because this is urgent, as part of the judgment of the ConCourt, I am sure the president will do it as quickly as possible,” said Dodovu.
He said this would be a priority for the select committee next year to monitor its implementation.
“We need to check people moving from one municipality to another,” he said.
He said senior officials have a bigger responsibility because of the multimillion-rand budgets and tenders that they oversee.
– Political Bureau
