After an illegal – and costly – strike of almost four months, Tshwane is pulling back from the brink of collapse to get back looted money and crack down on lawlessness. The MMC for Community Safety Grandi Theunissen of the Freedom Front details the steps being taken to return stability and safety to South Africa’s capital city. Those include the appointment of highly experienced chiefs of Police and Emergency Services; a crack-down on illegal liquor traders and spaza shops; as well as plans to establish an Illegal Electricity and Water Connection Unit, a multi-functional By-Law Enforcement Centre, and a Community Safety Directorate. He also reveals how 33 cases of fraudulent activity contributed to the City being in such deep financial distress – and describes the fight to bring those people responsible to book – and recover the money. – Chris Steyn
Sign up for your early morning brew of the BizNews Insider to keep you up to speed with the content that matters. The newsletter will land in your inbox at 5:30am weekdays. Register here.
Watch here
Relevant timestamps from the interview
- 00:10 – Introductions
- 00:35 – Grandi Theunissen on the situation Tshwane after the strike ended
- 01:39 – The contents of the latest report from the Financial Disciplinary Board
- 05:41 – Where the finances stand right now
- 08:53 – The crime situation and what is happening with restructuring as far as community safety is concerned
- 17:34 – On what he found during some crime prevention operations
- 20:18 – Conclusions
Listen here
Highlights from the Interview
After an illegal – and costly – strike of almost four months, Tshwane is pulling back from the brink of collapse to get back looted money and crack down on lawlessness.
In this interview with BizNews, MMC for Community Safety Grandi Theunissen of the Freedom Front details the steps being taken to return stability and safety to South Africa’s capital city.
The measures include the appointment of highly experienced chiefs of Police and Emergency Services; a crack-down on illegal liquor traders and spaza shops; as well as plans to establish an Illegal Electricity and Water Connection Unit, a multi-functional By-Law Enforcement Centre, and a Community Safety Directorate.
Read more: BHI Ponzi: Allan Gray’s cosy connection with Global & Local
He also reveals how 33 cases of fraudulent activity contributed to the City being in such deep financial distress – and describes the fight to bring those people responsible to book.
Asked about the latest report of the Financial Disciplinary Board, Theunnissen says: “Obviously it’s a confidential report, so I can’t divulge personal information, but definitely I can touch on some of the issues.
“There were 33 instances that were reported of fraudulent or that type of activities that took place over quite some time, a long period, and most of these incidents historically were there dating back to 2013 and even longer in some of the cases.”
Detailing some of the biggest cases, Theunnisen says one alone cost the City R3 billion. “And what’s worse at the moment is that in view of a VAT problem that was not declared, the City has now incurred another four billion in terms of VAT and obviously fines that need to be paid to the Receiver of Revenue.
“So it’s put the City back quite considerably in terms of finance and the report actually recommends that action be taken against the company itself to try and recover some of the money and obviously officials who may have been involved and have been implicated through the forensic report.”
Theunissen says what is even more worrying is that forensic reports and investigations that were done, were lying in drawers or in baskets for quite some time. “So it just shows that for many years the previous administrations were actually trying to hide some of these things….
“And these are the types of matters that actually put the City into this financial distress we are in.
“…we are fighting to clean up. We are fighting to bring those people who were responsible for these activities to book.”
He adds: “…it took 25 years to destroy the city’s finances. So it cannot be expected that we can recover everything within a year or two.”
Theunissen points out that investors were “becoming despondent” to invest in the city “because of crime, because of maladministration, because of just a lack of good leadership”. But he is confident that the measures being taken will combat and change that.
Meanwhile, Theunissen is relieved that the strike is finally over. “It had a serious impact on service delivery. Things are normalising at the moment in terms of service delivery. We are getting there slowly but surely. In terms of the finances, we took a knock because we had to contract people to do some of the services in the absence of employees. As well, our income was jeopardised by a poor performance by the department…actually are responsible for doing the credit control functions.”
Read also:
