A war of words has erupted between former senior officials of the Johannesburg Roads Agency (JRA) and Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba.
This is after Mashaba on Tuesday sought to "set the record straight" after his comments on the weekly programme Carte Blanche about performance at the JRA.
In 2017 the JRA faced upheaval when two of its most senior executives — MD Sean Phillips and head of infrastructure development Mpho Kau — resigned. Former company secretary Karen Mills was suspended after a protected disclosure to the city’s investigative unit led by Gen Shadrack Sibiya before settling with the JRA.
Open letter to Johannesburg mayor Herman Mashaba
The resignations and Mills’s suspension came barely five months after a new board was appointed in March 2017. Sipho Tshabalala, a Soweto businessman, is still the chairman.
Phillips resigned after raising governance issues at the JRA and over differences with Tshabalala. On Tuesday Phillips said in response to Mashaba’s statement, that Tshabalala had "bluntly" requested him not to award tenders without his (Tshabalala’s) involvement.
Phillips alleged that after he informed Tshabalala this was illegal, the chairman had asked to be "informally" involved.
Mashaba said the issues pertaining to the condition of Johannesburg’s roads and the departure of senior officials and impropriety in the agency had all been conflated into one. The mayor said the departure of senior officials was no cause for concern as the city’s approach was to work with those who were "willing and committed".
He said that Phillips resigned without providing evidence of the board’s alleged wrongdoing, but that the JRA had continued with the investigation.
Phillips said the issues he raised about Mills’s suspension and Tshabalala’s insistence on outsourcing the project management unit (PMU) could not be seen as prima facie evidence of corruption but they were "major red flags about governance and the mayor should have acted on them".
"I was very disappointed that the mayor did not tell the board chairperson that he may not try to involve himself in the award of tenders, that the board should not proceed with the appointment of the PMU without addressing my concerns and that the suspension of the company secretary should be withdrawn," Phillips said.
"I resigned because I felt that I could not survive in my position without the support of the mayor, in the light of the suspension of the company secretary and my refusal to proceed with the appointment of the PMU without my concerns being addressed."
Mills also took issue with Mashaba’s comments in the Carte Blanche interview. She said nothing has been done since she made her protected disclosure at the beginning of August 2017, and accused Mashaba of failng to act decisively. She also said Mashaba should have the guts to stand by his “stated ethical and moral convictions and stop sacrificing them to keep yourself in power.”
Press statement by Dr Sean Phillips, former managing director of the Johannesburg Road Agency
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