The eThekwini Metropolitan Municipality has launched a forensic investigation to determine how a R91 million contract to fix and maintain street lights ended up costing the council R579 million.
In the three months between November 2019 and December 2020, officials paid R579 million to 18 companies to fix and maintain street lights across the city.
The biggest beneficiary was Nsephe Electrical, which was paid R32.4 million in November, R43.6 million in December, and R43.7 million in January. ES Electrical was the second-biggest beneficiary with payments of R23.7 million, R33.5 million, and R33.5 million.
An eThekwini spokesperson, Lindiwe Khuzwayo, told News24: ‘The matter is still under investigation by our City Investigations and Integrity Unit (CIIU). As a matter of practice, we do not comment on investigations that are under way until they have been concluded.’
A senior council executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he was aware that companies were paid up to R600 million and that no work was done.
Abantu Batho Congress (ABC) leader, Philani Mavundla, said: ‘What I can say personally is that when we [the coalition government] came in during 2021, the bigger part of eThekwini was in darkness, and that is how we came to know that money for street lights was depleted in three months in a contract that was supposed to last for three years. It is practically impossible to spend R580 million over three months installing bulbs’.
News24 has obtained a document that shows R217 million cut from the budgets of other units and redirected to the electricity department for fixing and maintaining street lights.
DA councillor, Ernest Smith said it was concerning that such an exorbitant amount was utilised, yet there were, on average, at least 1 000 street lights out in any given ward in the eThekwini Municipality.