A preliminary report from the Public Protector has made a number of adverse findings on the conduct of former City of Johannesburg (CoJ) mayor Herman Mashaba.
News reports indicate that she condemned some senior appointments and the management of supply chains as contrary to regulations.
Former Johannesburg Metro Police Department head David Tembe, for example, was appointed even though he lacked the appropriate educational qualifications.
The extension of a contract with KPMG was extended without proper procedures having been followed.
In addition, the report fingered conflicts of interest in that Mashaba solicited services from Deshmukh Akhter Alli, who had been a business associate, and was a business partner of Mashaba’s wife, Connie Mashaba.
‘The conduct of Mr Mashaba as a councillor and mayor for that matter, of directly approaching, hand-picking and recommending to CoJ his former business partner namely Mr Deshmukh who still works directly with Mr Mashaba’s wife at LFS, was irreconcilable with clause 11, 2, 5, 1 and 5.2 of the Code of Councillors embedded in MSA (Municipal Systems Act,’ says the report.
A company in which Connie Mashaba held a stake was also alleged to have been awarded a large tender by the CoJ.
Mashaba, however, has hit back, disputing issues of ‘fact and law’ in the report. He said that his legal team was preparing a response.
Elected mayor of the CoJ in 2016, Mashaba quit the office and left the Democratic Alliance in a blaze of publicity, after a tenure which had produced strongly positive and strongly negative reactions. He is currently head of the People’s Dialogue, a nascent political movement.
A book on his term as mayor, The Accidental Mayor, written by his former chief of staff Michael Beaumont, is to be released shortly.