THE cash-strapped Nketoana Local Municipality in the Free State has been rocked by fresh allegations of corruption involving a contractor allegedly linked to the mayor.
This after the municipality was accused of failing to penalise a contractor linked to the mayor’s cousin for poor performance. The contractor failed to meet the deadline for completing a concrete reservoir project in February of this year.
The project is currently sitting on 10% progress.
The Nketoana Municipality appointed the Little Rocky and Baleleri ba Africa joint venture, to construct the concrete reservoir worth more than R17 million in Leratswana, Arlington, in March 2023.
The sources alleged that it had been established that the director of Baleleri ba Africa, Thapelo Nakedi, was Mayor Mamiki Mokoena’s cousin.
Nketoana municipal manager, Mokete Nhlapo, said the municipality would respond by Friday morning.
According to the records seen by the Sunday Independent, an amount of R1 824 360 was paid to the constructor while the project was sitting at 10%.
The agreement, signed by Nhlapho, states that the municipality the service provider would be given 14 days to rectify poor performance, and the deal would be cancelled without further notice should the contractor fail to address the situation.
It was also agreed that Nketoana should pay the service provider for the scope of work that had been provided to the municipality.
But our sources claimed that the municipality did not penalise the contractor, alleging that this was because the contractor was linked to the mayor.
According to Section 23 of the General Conditions of Contracts, which regulates construction contracts, contractors must be penalised for non-performance. The section also allows the termination of contracts.
“It is frustrating that the contractor has taken advantage of the relationship with the mayor and does what he pleases,” said the sources, adding that Nakedi’s mother was also an employee of the municipality, and he allegedly made a false declaration when submitting the bid indicating that no related party was in the employ of the municipality.
Nakedi said that Mokoena was a distant relative, and confirmed that his mother was an employee of the municipality. However, he denied that either Mokoena or his mother had influenced his appointment.
He blamed the Nketoana municipality for his failure to complete the project, saying that they had to suspend the work due to a legal dispute between the municipality and the consulting engineers, over outstanding payments.
Nakedi said at that time he had accumulated an invoice of about R900 000 that was submitted in January 2024. He said Nketoana failed to pay the amount after the SA Revenue Service (Sars) attached the municipality’s account.
The operation had to wait until March after the municipality received an equitable share. Work resumed after the Easter weekend and since then they have been working, he said adding that he had had been paid over R1.8 million so far.
Asked to provide evidence of the work done, Nakedi refused, saying there was no need for it.
Little Rocky director, Maxwell Phiri, did not respond to questions asked of him. However, community leader Thapelo Maloka alleged that Nakedi had paid kickbacks to politicians instead of buying material and paying workers.
He said this was sad because there was a serious shortage of water in the area.
The allegations were backed by DA caucus leader, Diphaphang Mofokeng, who said he had conducted oversight to monitor the progress and found that nothing was happening despite several payments made to the service provider.
“The delay in completing this project will severely affect the community and as the DA, we will continue to pose questions in council and our committees.
“We call on authorities to investigate payments made so far compared to the work that was supposed to be done to establish whether any politician received any form of kickbacks or gratification,” he said.
Nakedi dismissed the allegations as “baseless and gossip”.
The Sunday Independent last week reported how Mokoena allegedly spent almost R100 000 of taxpayers’ money on fuel and a rented vehicle despite failure to pay salaries on time. The vehicle is rented from Avis on a monthly basis.
This was after Mokoena damaged two vehicles that were purchased by the municipality in 2021 and 2023.
manyane.manyane@inl.co.za