Africa-Press – South-Africa. Within 24 hours of receipt of a corruption complaint against then eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede, the head of the eThekwini investigations unit gave the go-ahead for a probe to be conducted, the KwaZulu-Natal High Court in Durban has heard.
eThekwini’s City Integrity Investigation Unit (CIIU) head, Mbuso Ngcobo, made the startling submission during cross-examination by Gumede’s lawyer, Jay Naidoo, during Gumede’s trial in the High Court on Thursday.
Gumede and 21 others are accused in the matter, meaning that Naidoo is the first of many lawyers to cross-examine Ngcobo.
The 22 accused, including former eThekwini City manager Sipho Nzuza and ANC councillor Mondli Mthembu, 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. The allegations relate to a R320-million Durban Solid Waste tender.
During Thursday’s cross-examination, Naidoo began by breaking down the process the CIIU undertakes before contracting forensic auditors for an investigation.
Ngcobo initially outlined a lengthy process involving a complaint that is received, an assessor’s analysis of the complaint and the submission of a report.
“That manager will sign the report to their supervisor, who is a senior manager. I’m at the end of the process, where my deputy would sign off on that and send it to me,” Ngcobo told the court.
Ngcobo explained why so many processes were involved: “Sometimes you find people complain about their partners and such, so we have to test them quite a bit.”
Naidoo questioned why Gumede’s investigation was signed off within a day and asked whether it was “general policy”.
Ngcobo responded:
Ngcobo added that there were capacity issues at the CIIU.
“We have a total staff complement of 70, including forensic investigators that work on these matters,” he said.
Naidoo interrogated the document Ngcobo had approved, which led to the initial investigation.
The witness revealed that one internal report would have been completed by a CIIU manager before he signed off on a forensic investigator. He said this report was not part of the court documents.
The court adjourned for Ngcobo to contact managers at the CIIU and retrieve the reports so that lawyers could peruse them.
For More News And Analysis About South-Africa Follow Africa-Press
