Durban - The investigation into corruption allegations against former eThekwini mayor Zandile Gumede and senior city officials in the multi-million-rand Durban Solid Waste (DSW) tender was so sensitive that the Hawks were brought on board almost immediately, the Durban High Court heard on Wednesday.
Mbuso Ngcobo, head of the City Integrity and Strategic Investigations Unit (CIIU) and the first State witness in the trial, resumed his testimony yesterday and told the court that when the City’s Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) tried to get an update on the investigation, it received a letter from the Hawks, which said the details of the investigation could not be revealed.
Gumede and her co-accused, who include former Durban city manager Sipho Nzuza, former exco member Mondli Mthembu, Robert Abbu, who was DSW deputy head, and Sandile Ngcobo, the former deputy head of supply chain management, among others, face charges including conspiracy to commit corruption, corruption, fraud, money laundering, racketeering, contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act and contravention of the Municipal Systems Act, amounting to over R300 million.
Ngcobo said the letter, which came from the Hawks and was sent to the head of the secretariat for the attention of MPAC members in eThekwini municipality, indicated that the investigation was at a stage where its contents could not be shared until it had been concluded.
Following this, the court heard yesterday, there were no further enquiries from members of MPAC, one of the senior committees at the municipality.
Ngcobo said MPAC members, along with the city’s former chief financial officer Dr Krish Kumar and the city’s supply chain management head André Petersen, wanted to get an update regarding the investigation in which an interim report had been prepared by forensic audit company Integrity Forensic Solutions (IFS) at the behest of the CIIU.
Part of the interim report, Ngcobo told the court, had recommended that consequence management action be taken against some of the city officials over allegations of wrongdoing in the DSW matter.
The IFS report, he said, formed the basis of a broader investigation which involved IFS and the elite police unit, the Hawks.
Ngcobo told the court that the investigation into alleged fraud and corruption was kept a secret to many, with only senior officials, including former city manager Nzuza, given extracts of the investigation contents.
He told the court he had introduced Leo Sanders from IFS to Nzuza, the then city manager, and left the two to have a discussion, as he thought the city manager was going to be one of the State witnesses in the case.
Defence attorney Jay Naidoo started his cross-examination of Ngcobo yesterday by questioning the validity of some of the answers provided in a questionnaire that forms part of the evidence.
The defence questioned how some questions that demanded a direct answer from the complainant had been responded to, when a pile of documents had been left anonymously at the municipal building and the complainant had not filled in the form.
In addition to this, the defence wanted to know how Ngcobo arrived at the decision to investigate the matter and involve the police.
The case resumes today.