{"id":21393,"date":"2013-07-24T18:14:14","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T16:14:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/manase-report-lifts-lid-on-deals\/"},"modified":"2013-07-24T18:14:14","modified_gmt":"2013-07-24T16:14:14","slug":"manase-report-lifts-lid-on-deals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/manase-report-lifts-lid-on-deals\/","title":{"rendered":"Manase report lifts lid on \u2018deals\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>        \t                                <!-- Main Editorial Image --><br \/>\n                    \t\t\t      \t\t\t                                      <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/plugins\/rss-poster\/cache\/4cade_2191704775.jpg\" alt=\"manase cops\" title=\"\" class=\"pics\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"captions_credit_article\">INLSA<\/p>\n<p class=\"captions\">MEC Nomusa Dube. Picture:SANDILE MAKHOBA<\/p>\n<p class=\"captions\">\n<p class=\"related_articles\">Related Stories<\/p>\n<ul class=\"menu_tab_lists_related\">\n<li><a class=\"related_articles\" href=\"http:\/\/www.iol.co.za:80\/news\/politics\/controversial-manase-report-released-1.1551403\">Controversial Manase report released<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><!--PSTYLE=WT Web Text--><\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Durban &#8211; The Manase report into fraud and corruption in eThekwini has lifted the lid on the dealings that led to the city pouring nearly half a billion rand into an in-house revenue billing system. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">According to the report, which was released in its entirety to The Mercury on Tuesday, the contract for the project was awarded irregularly to Ramco\/Citi Works, and a municipal official involved in the process subsequently landed a top job at the same company. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">The decision to develop the system was taken in 2003, after which the executive committee gave approval for the purchase \u201cof a development platform\u201d and for Ramco to be \u201ca strategic partner\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Manase investigators said Lunga Madlala, then-deputy head of information technology, co-signed a document in 2004 informing exco of plans to replace the revenue system. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Other signatories were then-deputy city manager for procurement Derek Naidoo, then-city manager Michael Sutcliffe, and city treasurer Krish Kumar. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cMadlala was subsequently appointed as an executive of Ramco\/Citi Works.\u201d However, the investigators were unable to establish when this occurred. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cMadlala\u2019s role as deputy head of IT at the eThekwini Municipality and his subsequent role as an executive at Ramco\/Citi Works is indicative of a possible conflict of interest,\u201d the report said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Another concern was the \u201cextremely long\u201d duration of the project. The costs had ballooned from an estimated R90m to R150m at inception 10 years ago, to R505m now. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">The report also revealed that, other than the millions paid to Ramco\/Citi Works, consultants were paid R118.76m to supplement the work done by the company. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cIt is imperative that a formal plan is followed for eThekwini to become self-reliant\u2026 as the payment of high fees to external consultants cannot be sustained,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">The Manase investigators recommended that a further investigation be conducted into the Revenue Management System, including Madlala\u2019s involvement. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cThe continuous overruns on budgets, the significant amounts paid to external consultants and the minimal use of eThekwini Municipality\u2019s own staff appear to be symptomatic of poor financial controls since inception,\u201d it said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">Last month, when Co-operative Governance MEC Nomusa Dube spoke about the report, she said an independent auditor had been appointed to review the work. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">In a summary of findings, the department said the auditor had recommended that the billing system project be continued and an additional R150m be invested to ensure it went live and that all change management processes, data migration and user testing principles were in place. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">The Mercury has reported that the auditor, Liepzig Advisory IT, landed a contract to oversee the project\u2019s implementation. The summary also said that the anti-corruption task team was investigating. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">DA councillor Rick Crouch said the Manase revelations were not surprising. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">\u201cThe Revenue Management System is so incestuous as it is no different to the current developments involving Liepzig Advisory IT\u2026 It is common practice that government employees push for contracts to be given to a certain company (and) then later get an executive position in that company,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\">The Mercury was unable to reach Madlala for comment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"arcticle_text\"><strong>The Mercury<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>INLSA MEC Nomusa Dube. Picture:SANDILE MAKHOBA Related Stories Controversial Manase report released Durban &#8211; The Manase report into fraud and corruption in eThekwini has lifted the lid on the dealings that led to the city pouring nearly half a billion rand into an in-house revenue billing system. According to the report, which was released in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-21393","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21393\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}