Africa-Press – South-Africa. Johannesburg’s speaker, Colleen Makhubele, said she was being attacked for exercising her legal powers to advise council and to act on its behalf.
She authorised a probe into the conduct of the group forensics and investigation service (GFIS) as well as ex-City leaders who are alleged to have misused the corruption-busting entity.
An independent senior counsel will do the preliminary investigation.
The Office of the speaker will announce the legal firm on Friday.
The findings of the report are to be delivered to the council on 21 July at the next ordinary sitting.
Last week, GFIS’s powers were removed in a behind-closed-doors report, given by the mayor, Kabelo Gwamanda, at the 13th Ordinary Sitting of Council.
According to the report, the “investigations conducted by GFIS were neither compliant with the local government disciplinary regulations for senior managers, nor compliant with the approved GFIS delegations of authority”.
The opposition, fingered in the report for allegedly using GFIS as a personal vendetta agency, registered its discontent.
The DA’s Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku accused Makhubele of overreaching her mandate.
Kayser-Echeozonjoku was concerned that the names of those implicated – former speaker Vasco Da Gama, former mayor Mpho Phalatse and councillor Leah Knott – were mentioned in a statement on the matter, without being warned.
On Thursday, the Speaker held a briefing, saying she and the City manager, Floyd Brink, were being attacked for exercising their legal powers.
Makhubele said:
Makhubele said the previous DA-led administration had secretly spent R20 million on digital forensic equipment, which was used to spy on councillors.
The speaker said she had been a victim of it – and recently found out she was the subject of a 200-page “illegal investigation”, which she said was concealed by the DA-led government.
She said GFIS was open to abuse because it was created without a clear mandate on its powers, how it could be used, and by whom.
Makhubele said the investigation would be the first step to fixing this issue – and the council would take guidance on how the entity would operate in future.
She asked: “Why the panic [on the investigation] on their part, if there was nothing to hide?”
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