Former City of Joburg mayor Herman Mashaba has lashed out at current ANC mayor Geoff Makhubo for “mischaracterising” a recent court judgment, which declared the city’s multimillion rand tender to procure 92 fire engines illegal and unconstitutional, saying the procurement was done to keep the city safe.
Mashaba, who became mayor on an anticorruption ticket during the watershed municipal elections in 2016, said the multiparty government under his leadership “inherited a disaster of a contract for R161m” entered into in 2015. The contract is also known as the red fleet contract.
Mashaba, who is now president of political start-up ActionSA, said the company awarded the contract could not deliver and immediately went into business rescue and was found to have “issued a fraudulent performance guarantee”.
“We faced a serious situation of insufficient fire engines in working condition to keep the residents of Johannesburg safe,” he said.
“The city manager initiated an emergency tender process, in accordance with the provisions of the Municipal Finance Management Act, which exists for precisely this reason — when following the normal time consuming process could result in loss of life and property.”
He admitted, however, that “it is clear from the court judgment that the process followed by the administration of the city was procedurally incorrect and needs to be investigated”.
“I encourage Makhubo, as I did then, to take the necessary consequence management against officials responsible for not following the required process,” Mashaba said on Wednesday.
“Makhubo’s mayoralty has been nothing short of a train wreck. His attempt to mischaracterise the court judgment is transparent,” he added.
Makhubo said the “the judgment confirms the previous administration under former mayor Mashaba, was corrupt and ethically flawed and whose actions sought to award tenders in the city without adherence to due process and legislation”.
“The City of Johannesburg under the former mayor [Mashaba] and [DA] councillor Michael Sun paid R 172m for fire engines that were and still are, desperately needed by the city but were never delivered and were procured on defective specifications,” Makhubo said. Makhubo was elected as mayor in SA’s largest and richest city late in 2019 after Mashaba’s sudden resignation.
“These illegal, irregular and unconstitutional procurement processes that characterised the DA/EFF reign of impunity in the city have led to the city accumulating a record R3.5bn in unauthorised, irregular, wasteful and fruitless expenditure in the 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 financial years,” he said.
Makhubo said it had been shocking that the DA would accuse his administration of being unresponsive to the fire and rescue needs of the metro when it had “mismanaged” money intended for that purpose.
Makhubo’s spokesperson, Mlimandlela Ndamase, said the city would move swiftly to procure fire and rescue vehicles “and will do so in a legal, transparent and competitive manner which is a departure from past practice under the previous administration”.
DA City of Johannesburg caucus leader Leah Knott said on Wednesday: “The real issue here is the fact that the city only has seven fire engines to serve the residents of Johannesburg, and not all of these are working. As we go into winter the risk of fires in informal settlements rises dramatically, posing a massive danger to life and property.”
Knott said the council had allocated R200m to buy new fire engines in the current financial year, “but the mayor [Makhubo] failed to start the process to buy these. The DA opposed the reallocation of this R200m to pay for cadre recruitment in the mayor’s office”.
“To claim that the issue of the red fleet contract is entirely the fault of the DA is to ignore the fact that this started back in 2015 with an irregular contract awarded by the ANC,” she said.
“Makhubo’s attempt to blame councillor [Michael] Sun, who was not involved in the red fleet contract other than to ensure the provision of suitable fire engines to serve the residents of the city, amounts to defamation and we will consider legal action. The mayor needs to stop taking legal advice from a convicted criminal who has been barred from practising law in this country.”
Knott said they needed solutions to the lack of fire engines, which put the lives of residents in danger. “We will make sure that the new city budget includes R200m to buy new fire engines, and will make sure that the mayor actually starts the procurement process this time around.”
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