Israel and other officers find themselves on the wrong end of an internal audit report on procurement and alleged use of SkyJacks that costs the city council over P2 million.
The audit report deemed confidential and seen by Mmegi has exposed a case of unprocedural procurement of SkyJacks and fictitious payment of hire of same by the council, which was allegedly sanctioned by the office of the Town Clerk.
The GCC’s internal audit committee has called for Israel’s suspension and further reported the matter to the DCEC for investigation.
The case in question relates to the alleged P885,075.00 tender for the supply of three mounted boom lift SkyJacks by the council back in 2019, which was awarded to a certain company (names withheld).
It is said the procured items were delivered in 2020 without rear lamps, a standard component of the SkyJacks, which rendered them not roadworthy. However, instead of communicating the problem with the supplying company, officials at the council failed to act on the matter and later on decided to seek variation to install new rear lamps which variation was rejected by the office of the Town Clerk.
But in turn, the same office allegedly authorised the hire and rental of the same equipment from a local hardware company to the tune of P2,414,927.20.
The audit further revealed that from that P2,414,927.20, there was allegedly a fictitious P1,195,094.60 paid as a result of double charging the SkyJack services provided in various dates for the period between November 27, 2020 and October 1, 2021.
The audit report also blames the office of the Town Clerk for allegedly authorising the continued hire or rental services of the SkyJacks from a local hardware company despite the exhaustion of the Hire and Transport Vote, which had been exhausted to a negative balance of P2,194,965.
“For the office of the Town Clerk to have allegedly authorised the payment of the very same items that it was aware that were delivered incomplete by rejecting the variation a day before, the audit found no reason why the office couldn’t have recalled the variation at the time it requested investigation because by authorising the last stage of payment, the office somehow accepted that the SkyJacks are now a burden,” read the audit report in part.
The audit report stated that the office of the Town Clerk is now reportedly implicated in the process because instead of also rejecting the payment like it did with irregular variation, it went ahead and authorised the payment. It found out that the variation could have downsised to cover the rear lamps instead of renting other SkyJacks.
The internal audit report states that these decisions have worsened the financial predicaments and burden to service delivery the council finds itself in than mitigate them.
It alleged that the office of the Clerk has failed in its capacity with responsibility to exercise supervision over other departments under its authority and entrusted with expenditure of local authority money allocated to those departments.
In response to Mmegi enquiry over the allegations, Israel said he was not in a position to comment on the matter relating to the procurement and outsourcing of SkyJacks as it is currently being discussed.
“To protect my integrity and observe issues of good governance I have advised myself to recuse myself from the discussion of the Audit Report and referred the matter to the Permanent Secretary who is my supervisor especially given that there are meetings being held planning for my downfall,” said Israel.
Israel also said he has also reported the matter to DCEC for investigation as the competent authority to deal with these matters. “This report is currently being discussed at committee stage and considered confidential as per the provision of the Local Government Act. With regard to corruption, yes there are reported cases of suspected corruption that are being investigated by investigation agencies of government," he told Mmegi.
He said GCC does not condone corruption hence all suspicions of corruption are reported to investigating agencies.
The Public Relations officer at the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development, Masego Ramakgathi said he is not aware of the allegations. “Again, we are of the view that any corruption or suspicion of corrupt practices should be reported to DCEC,” said Ramakgathi. The DCEC had not responded to Mmegi enquiry at the time of going to press.
According to the report, the issue of misappropriation was allegedly first raised by the Performance Monitoring Committee during its sitting of September 16, 2021. The committee was of the view that the SkyJacks were not serving their purpose as such caused an audit on their procurement and use to ascertain if they were serving the purpose they were procured for.
