This speech was delivered by GOOD Secretary-General & Member of the Western Cape Parliament Brett Herron during today’s statement to the house regarding the recent raids of COCT:
Late on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, police raids were carried out, and at the heart of the raids was the City of Cape Town.
This is a sobering reminder that while this government never misses an opportunity to boast about being “better than everyone else,” the truth may be that they are simply better at hiding.
Because when SAPS arrives with warrants linked to tender fraud on the scale of R1.6 billion, we are compelled to ask: how did the City manage to have all these so-called “clean audits”?
What lies beneath the glossy reports, if billions of rands of public money are under investigation?
In this term of office, since 2021, the City of Cape Town has had more raids by the Hawks and Commercial Crimes Unit of SAPS than during all the previous terms combined.
We have contracts with gangsters, a former Mayco Member charged with fraud and corruption, raiding of two current Mayco Members offices, and now the raids conducted yesterday.
In the last two or three years we have had the R1.8 billion housing corruption scandal, the R386 million waste management corruption scandal and now the R1.6 billion urban mobility corruption scandal.
It is the DA that has politicised clean audits by claiming they represent something that those of us who have served in executive office know they are not.
The fact that the City of Cape Town can receive clean audits while their procurement processes are so porous and the administration is so riddled with allegations of corruption – currently amounting to nearly R4 billion – must raise questions about both the claim of a clean audit but more importantly what does it actually tell any member of the public about the state of governance.
Clearly, something is either misrepresented about the auditing process or the clean audit does not equal clean governance.
To make matters worse, while an effective SCOPA can interrogate ministers, DGs, HODs, CEOs of state owned entities, in full public and media view – the City of Cape Town closes the workings of their MPAC (Municipal Public Accounts Committee) to the public – hiding the corruption, irregular, fruit and wasteful expenditure from scrutiny.
GOOD Manifesto on Support for Arts and Culture: Supporting the arts and culture sector.
Baked ZD
Fun South African Fact: While the country only covers 1% of the Earth’s land surface, South Africa boasts 10% of the world’s bird, fish and plant species as well as 6% of its mammal and reptile species!