/ 17 October 2008

Ekurhuleni metro bars M&G

A forensic risk firm that fingered several Ekurhuleni councillors and officials in suspicious land deal transactions has been barred by the Ekurhuleni metro council from conducting any further investigations in the municipality.

This comes after city manager Patrick Flusk tabled three reports to the council at the end of September.

Bryanston-based Pasco Risk Management may no longer perform any investigations into Ekurhuleni’s affairs after the majority of councillors resolved that Pasco’s reports on the land transactions should first be scrutinised by an external audit firm.

The Mail & Guardian was prevented from attending the council meeting last Thursday, during which the reports were discussed after the ANC asked for the meeting to be held ‘in committee” — behind closed doors.

Speaker Patricia Kumalo evoked a 1939 local government ordinance to declare the meeting private.

The ordinance empowers the speaker to close meetings when matters of a legal nature are discussed.

The M&G instructed its lawyer, Peter Mahlangu of Cheadle Thompson & Haysom, to write to Kumalo urgently and to demand that the meeting be re-opened.

‘We are of the view the discussion of the report does not fall within the ambit of section 23 of chapter III of the ordinance,” Mahlangu wrote.

‘This view is fortified by the fact that the report was tabled at a council meeting in the presence of
members of the public and media.

‘We are further of the view that the section is overbroad, impermissibly limits the rights to freedom of expression and access to information and undermines the commitments to openness and transparency.”

After receiving the letter Kumalo told the M&G that she would ask for the rest of the meeting, including the formulation of resolutions, to be conducted in public.

The letter (PDF)

Read Peter Mahlangu’s letter

However, the ANC caucus in the council rejected her proposal and the meeting continued behind closed doors.

After the meeting adjourned Flusk told the M&G that the council had reached consensus that Pasco’s reports be ‘subjected to an external body as per supply chain management policy for analysis”.

A further report must be submitted to the council by the end of January 2009.

The council also resolved that Pasco be barred from conducting any further investigations in Ekurhuleni.

Asked whether this meant Pasco must cease its investigation into 526 land transactions that could possibly have been concluded irregularly, Flusk said he was not entirely sure what the politicians meant.

The Pasco probe hit headlines earlier this year when it was reported that Ekurhuleni might have lost more than R30-million in a controversial Meyersdal land-swap deal.