Eastern Cape municipality racks up R1m bill on travel, beanies, dustbins etc

A R1-million bill for the mayor and his committee members for overseas travel, branded clothing and umbrellas, lavish catering, gardening tools and expensive dustbins are some of the expenses at the Sarah Baartman District Municipality that have been flagged in recent financial reports.

The municipality, a part of the province with truly appalling roads, has also returned a crucial roads grant to Treasury after failing to spend the money.

Some of South Africa’s most popular beach towns, Jeffreys Bay, St Francis Bay, Port Alfred and Kenton-on-Sea fall under this municipality, as do inland towns like Graaff-Reinet and Somerset East. 

The Sarah Baartman District Municipality is the largest in the Eastern Cape. It does not have a revenue base and is heavily dependent on grant funding and its portion of the equitable share.

Its tasks are to “provide support to the seven local municipalities that fall within its area that are too small to provide services to their respective communities”.

It supports the local municipalities in providing basic services like electricity, water and refuse removal. It also has certain disaster management functions and is responsible for roads.

These smaller municipalities are Kou-Kamma (Tsitsikamma and Langkloof), Dr Beyers Naude (Graaff-Reinet, Aberdeen, Nieu-Bethesda, Klipplaat, Jansenville, Willowmore), Kouga (Jeffreys Bay, St Francis Bay), the Blue Crane Route (Somerset-East), Sundays River Valley (Addo and Sundays River), Ndlambe (Port Alfred) and Makana (Makhanda). 

At least one of the province’s distressed municipalities, Makana Local Municipality, falls under the Sarah Baartman District Municipality.

Hennie Britz, a Democratic Alliance (DA) councillor in Sarah Baartman, said he will be writing to the Auditor-General to highlight the “mind-blowing expenses” incurred by a coalition government formed by the ANC and the EFF.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Eastern Cape warns of drastic budget-slashing to meet national government targets

The information comes from financial reports tabled at a council meeting in November. 

The revelation comes as austerity measures from both the national government and the provincial government take effect in the province.

“The municipality’s internal audit committee reported to the council that R1-million was spent on overseas travel by the executive mayor, his mayoral committee members and officials with little to no benefit to residents. 

“The DA has already reported this luxurious expense to the Eastern Cape MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Zolile Williams, and National Treasury,” Britz said.

The municipality also spent R470,000 on catering and groceries, R45,200 on personal protective equipment, R42,000 on garden tools (although the municipality does not have any gardens to maintain), R270,000 on beanies, branded jackets, scarves, umbrellas and toiletries, and R76,000 on cleaning material. 

“The municipality also bought and supplied two waste bins at a cost of R165,000, while the actual cost should have been only R18,000 per bin,” Britz continued.

The municipality was flagged by the Public Protector earlier this year as one of the councils that is failing in its constitutional duties to provide services to its residents specifically regarding the administration of its conditional roads grant. 

This grant, however, was returned unspent to the Treasury. 

Read more in Daily Maverick: R3.8bn a year – how much the Eastern Cape needs to fix potholes and maintain roads

“Lack or poor maintenance of access roads in villages within [the Ndlambe Local Municipality in Port Alfred] and the Sarah Baartman District Municipality which has the potential to affect economic activity in the area,” the report read.

Earlier this year, in an answer to the provincial legislature, MEC Williams said the Sarah Baartman District Municipality has only 25 fire engines, a shortage of 19 to comply with national standards. He added that only 16 of the 25 were in working condition. 

“The municipality should rather have invested in service delivery, such as much-needed fire trucks for the Ndlambe and Koukamma Local Municipalities, and building capacity in struggling local municipalities,” Britz added.

The municipality also lost R351,000 in conditional grant funding relating to the Rural Roads Access Management Grant due to it being unspent. This too will be returned to National Treasury.

Irregular expenditure of R1.478-million, as well as R107,000 in fruitless and wasteful expenditure, were also incurred over the past financial year, according to the municipality’s financial statements.

Read more in Daily Maverick: Service delivery collapse: ‘Gatvol’ Eastern Cape resident reports provincial-wide failures

The municipality is headed by former Graaff-Reinet mayor Deon de Vos – both he and his communication staff have ignored several requests to comment on Britz’s statement.

In their 2021/2022 financial year audit, the Auditor-General had flagged issues with procurement and contract management legislation and the prevention of irregular expenditure, uncompetitive and unfair procurement and irregular expenditure related to supply chain management for this municipality. DM