DURBAN - ETHEKWINI Municipality is forking out R6.9 million of ratepayers’ money to get experts to assess the unauthorised work of private contractors that the city has been billed for.
This revelation emerged during an executive committee meeting yesterday. It left most opposition party councillors demanding that the city take a tougher stance against contractors that invaded sites, did work without prior authorisation, and then billed the municipality.
The city revealed that it had received claims for work it did not authorise dating back to 2019. It now has to pay consultants R6.9m to confirm that the work was done, and to the satisfaction of the municipality. If the consultants find that there was value for money, the city will then pay the invoices.
The municipality has in the past seen contractors invading sites, doing work and thereafter demanding payment. It said recently that it planned to adopt a tougher stance on this behaviour.
The work in question relates to the refurbishment of municipal communal toilets that were built to service township and informal settlement residents. The report on the matter said it was a request for the transfer of funding to pay for the assessment and certification of refurbishment of ablution facilities in the informal settlements. It also mentioned that the work had not been authorised.
Councillors at exco urged the metro to take the contractors to court instead of paying them.
DA councillor Nicole Graham said the city was better off challenging such contractors in court, in order to put a stop to such behaviour.
IFP councillor Mdu Nkosi said paying contractors under these conditions was setting the wrong precedent.
EFF councillor Thabani Miya said it was astonishing that exco was discussing paying contractors that had done unauthorised work.
The report said: “In December 2019, payments were processed for all payment certificates that had been certified by the design consultants appointed to supervise this work.
“Additional claims have been received for more work which remains unpaid, most of which is yet to be assessed and certified by the design consultants.”
It said these claims constituted unauthorised expenditure in that the work was carried out without the involvement of the Water and Sanitation Unit officials.
The report said that through the verification process by the forensic auditors, the unit had been able to retrospectively confirm value for money for some of the work, and the plan was to do the same for the balance of the claims.
It said contractors did work on the refurbishment of communal ablution blocks during the 2019/20 financial year which has neither been certified by the design consultants nor verified by the forensic auditors.
EThekwini’s head of Water and Sanitation Ednick Msweli said that while there was an initial contract for the refurbishment, the work being claimed for by contractors was not authorised. He claimed that the city had a contract in place to refurbish the communal toilets dating back to 2019, but the work in question was not authorised as the process to allocate the work had not been followed.
He said some of the contractors had taken advantage of the fact that these were not guarded construction sites.
He warned that suggestions to the council that it should not pay for unauthorised work carried a huge financial risk that could include the same property being vandalised.
THE MERCURY