The Makhado Municipality said this week that there was nothing wrong with a decision that a junior official could sign on behalf of the municipality’s director of technical services to exact a R1 656 166 payment to a contractor on 20 February this year.

“Yes, the payment is quite legitimate,” was municipal spokesperson Mr Louis Bobodi’s response when asked if the municipality had met all the legal obligations to exact the payment to Mkhachani Construction CC under the Sereni to Mashamba Road and Bridge contract.

The Zoutpansberger managed to obtain a copy of the payment documentation. These documents, however, raised several questions. To exact a payment of this magnitude, the documentation, among others, requires four signatures of senior officials, namely those of the PMU manager, the chief financial officer, the director of technical services and the municipal manager.

First off, the signature of the municipality’s director of technical services does not appear on the documentation. Instead, it boasts the signature of a Mr Thomas Matodzi. The newspaper was able to establish that Matodzi is not even part of the technical department, but works in the electrical department. This begged the question why his signature, and not that of the then acting director of technical services, appears on the document?

Secondly, the signature of Mrs Johana Tlou, a clerk responsible for the direct payment of accounts, appears on the documentation. She is one of the officials implicated in the Tripple Hawks investigation into the forging of signatures by officials to exact payments to tenderers. Another official implicated in the investigation is Mr Johnson Lukheli, the manager of Council affairs. Since the release of a preliminary report by Tripple Hawks regarding their investigation, the municipality suspended their manager (expenditure) in the finance department, Mr M V Mandobe. The municipality is also in the process of disciplinary action against Tlou and Lukheli.

Tripple Hawks Auditors & Forensic Audit, a private company, was appointed by municipal manager Mr Sakkie Mutshinyali after he was made aware of allegations of corruption in the middle of last year regarding the procurement process of tenders and the alleged forging of signatures by junior officials to make payments to tenderers without their actually rendering the services they had tendered for. Tripple Hawks’ main focus was to investigate several suspicious payments made to five respective companies.

Against this background, the Zoutpansberger took a closer look at the payment approval. The amount being claimed by them was for work already done on the project, as well as for sub-contractor work and an escalation of costs. It was their fourth claim with regard to work done on the contract, with the three previous payments totalling R2 489 000. The total contract value is R16 612 800.

Asked how Matodzi was able to sign off on the payment, Bobodi said he “was delegated to do so as he was the only senior official within the department of technical services who was available on 20 February 2015 to sign on behalf of the department”. Bobodi said that this decision was approved by the chief financial officer, adding that Matodzi was not a junior official, but that he functioned at managerial level. At the time, Bobodi said, Matodzi was assistant electrical manager and he still holds this position to date.

As for why the director of technical services had not signed the payment approval, Bobodi stated that the post of director technical services had been vacant at the time. Mr Lufuno Ragimana was, however, the acting director but, said Bobodi, Ragimana was not on duty at the time to sign himself.

The Zoutpansberger also wanted to know whether the work for which the money was claimed had been inspected before the payment was made. “Yes, it was inspected by all team members [including engineers, contractor and project manager]. It is standard practice that all payment certificates that are submitted to the municipality should have the signatures of an engineer and community representative or ward councillor,” Bobodi said.

Among Tripple Hawks’ report recommendations was that the municipal audit department should seriously look at their internal control measures. Bobodi was asked what their internal financial management policy dictated with regard to the approval of such large payments. He said that their current policy allowed the accounting officer to sign and approve payments to any amount invoiced, provided that the relevant head of department had reviewed and signed the claim document.