{"id":253220,"date":"2023-03-15T22:13:39","date_gmt":"2023-03-15T20:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/article\/court-challenge-to-siu-findings-against-nelson-mandela-bays-covid-spending-fails\/"},"modified":"2023-03-15T22:13:39","modified_gmt":"2023-03-15T20:13:39","slug":"court-challenge-to-siu-findings-against-nelson-mandela-bays-covid-spending-fails","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/court-challenge-to-siu-findings-against-nelson-mandela-bays-covid-spending-fails\/","title":{"rendered":"Court challenge to SIU findings against Nelson Mandela Bay\u2019s Covid spending fails"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"article_body\">\n<p><a class=\"bigger-image\" href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/images\/Graphics\/lisa_nelson\/scales-of-justice.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/court-challenge-to-siu-findings-against-nelson-mandela-bays-covid-spending-fails.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"caption\">Illustration: Lisa Nelson<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A Special Investigating Unit report that found irregularities in a R26.4-million toilet tender during the Covid pandemic stands.<\/li>\n<li>The High Court dismissed a bid by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality to review and set aside the report.<\/li>\n<li>The judge said the municipality\u2019s challenge was based on its \u201caversion or dislike\u201d of the findings, and this was not a reason to set it aside.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Gqeberha High Court has dismissed a bid by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality to review and set aside a Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report that found irregularities in a R26.4-million procurement process during the national state of disaster.<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt class=\"leave\" height=\"1\" id=\"gu_counter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/court-challenge-to-siu-findings-against-nelson-mandela-bays-covid-spending-fails.gif\" width=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>Acting Judge Rosaan Kruger, in a recent ruling, said while the SIU report was not a model of clarity, the unit had conducted its investigation within its mandate and had reported to President Cyril Rhamaposa as required.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe challenge to the report was based simply on its [the municipality\u2019s] aversion or dislike of its findings \u2026 That is not a reason for the report to be set aside,\u201d said Acting Judge Kruger.<\/p>\n<p>She also noted that the municipality had not proven any \u201cprejudice\u201d emanating from the report.<\/p>\n<div class=\"editor-summary\"><strong>Read the full judgment <a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/media\/uploads\/documents\/nelson_mandel_bay_toilets.pdf\">here<\/a><\/strong><\/div>\n<p>The report revealed that processes governing public procurement were not followed when the municipality appointed HT Pelatona Projects to build 2,000 toilets and 2,000 standpipes in informal settlements. Only 200 toilets were built.<\/p>\n<p>The report found that the municipality had used the national state of disaster, linked to the Covid pandemic, to circumvent proper tender processes.<\/p>\n<p>The SIU referred the matter to the Special Tribunal to review the contract and it issued a letter to the municipality to stop making payments to the company.<\/p>\n<p>Disciplinary referrals were made against two senior officials for their role in the awarding of the contract.<\/p>\n<p>The municipality, in its review before the court, said it had a particular mandate to take steps to prevent the spread of the Covid virus. This included moving people from densely populated informal settlements to serviced municipal-owned stands. The plan had been presented to the provincial government and the municipality was given funding to provide \u201cemergency relief\u201d. It said it was authorised under the directives issued by the Minister of Water and Sanitation that permitted emergency procurement of water and sanitation equipment for communities.<\/p>\n<p>The municipality submitted that the SIU\u2019s suggestions of impropriety were irrational, arbitrary and influenced by material errors of law.<\/p>\n<p>Acting Judge Kruger said judicial review was not about whether or not the SIU got it \u201cright or wrong\u201d but whether it exercised its powers properly.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn conducting the investigation and presenting the report to the President, the SIU acted in terms of the SIU Act and the proclamation (authorising it to probe Covid-related procurement). \u201c<\/p>\n<p>She said the directives issued by the Minister of Water and Sanitation only empowered the National Disaster Water Command Centre to coordinate procurement of goods and services at a national level, not individual municipalities.<\/p>\n<p>Acting Judge Kruger said the municipality\u2019s challenges to the report were couched in general terms \u201cand as such were of little assistance to the court\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>But the SIU had also not conducted itself in an \u201cexemplary fashion\u201d in the proceedings, she said, dismissing the application but making no order as to costs.<\/p>\n<p>SIU spokesperson Kaizer Kganyago said evidence pointing to criminality had been referred to the National Prosecuting Authority for further action.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThough the SIU welcomes the dismissal of the review application and respects rights of implicated parties to challenge its reports, it is worried by the step taken by the municipality as an organ of the State.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSIU investigations in State intuitions also identify lapses in governance and processes which expose the State to irregular and wasteful expenditure and make recommendations to ensure such lapses do not recur,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"article_copyright\">\n<p>\u00a9 2023 GroundUp. This article is licensed under a <a href=\"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nd\/4.0\/\" rel=\"license\">Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>You may republish this article, so long as you credit the authors and GroundUp, and do not change the text. Please include a link back to the original article.<\/p>\n<p>We put an invisible pixel in the article so that we can count traffic to republishers. All analytics tools are solely on our servers. We do not give our logs to any third party. Logs are deleted after two weeks. We do not use any IP address identifying information except to count regional traffic. We are solely interested in counting hits, <b>not tracking<\/b> users. If you republish, please do not delete the invisible pixel.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/court-challenge-to-siu-findings-against-nelson-mandela-bays-covid-spending-fails.jpg\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.groundup.org.za\/\">Source: GroundUp<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Illustration: Lisa Nelson A Special Investigating Unit report that found irregularities in a R26.4-million toilet tender during the Covid pandemic stands. The High Court dismissed a bid by the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality to review and set aside the report. The judge said the municipality\u2019s challenge was based on its \u201caversion or dislike\u201d of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":253221,"comment_status":"closed","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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9928],"tags":[28001],"class_list":{"0":"post-253220","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-groundup","8":"tag-groundup","9":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/court-challenge-to-siu-findings-against-nelson-mandela-bays-covid-spending-fails.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253220","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=253220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/253221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}