Bitou to decide on steps in corruption issue

12 May 2006

Brett Adkins

THE Bitou council is finally to discuss what action to take in the wake of a report by the Special Investigating Unit which found serious corruption in the Bitou municipality.
The meeting is likely to take place on Wednesday.
The report recommended criminal charges be investigated against two senior officials.
The SIU found that both civil and disciplinary action should also be brought against municipal manager George Seitisho and former mayor Euan Wildeman and said that, apart from criminal activity in the Bitou municipality, there had also been a number of breaches of the codes of conduct of the Municipal Systems Act in Bitou.
The council has remained tight-lipped on the outcome of the SIU probe since the findings were made known in Cape Town three weeks ago, saying only that it was waiting for the recommendations of independent lawyers before taking its next step.
Bitou speaker Lawrence Luiters said yesterday that a council meeting would be held “soon” to discuss the issue, while other sources confirmed that the meeting was likely to take place on Wednesday.
New mayor Lulama Mvimbi had said that council was waiting for the recommendations of independent lawyers before deciding whether Wildeman and Seitisho should be suspended pending any investigation.
In the long-awaited SIU report presented to the Western Cape Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) on April 19 by Local Government and Housing MEC Richard Dyantyi after months of delays, the SIU recommended disciplinary measures against Seitisho and Wildeman, the referral to police of certain matters which the SIU t says constitute fraud and theft, as well as civil action against both officials.
The recommendations came after a long-running debacle over council finances, which were the subject of hearings by Scopa last year following a report by the auditor-general for the 2003/04 financial year released a year ago.
The SIU said in the 18 months to August, 2004, Seitisho had used more than R170 000 in municipal funds on private spending. The report alleged that both he and Wildeman had failed to rectify overpayments of R14 229 each for a trip to Europe.

Source: The Herald

« back