When the executive mayor of the Mangaung Metro, Gregory Nthatisi, and his team appeared before parliament’s standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) to account for the “financial mess” in his municipality, his priority was to duck out of the meeting for “a smoke”.
It left a bitter taste in the mouth of Songezo Zibi, the leader of Rise Msanzi, who chairs Scopa, the public finances watchdog.
Mangaung, the Free State’s only metro municipality, had been ordered to appear before Scopa after the auditor-general last week presented a damning picture of its financial state following the 2024/25 audit process.
But when the crucial moment came to account for the financial chaos, the mayor prioritised his smoke break over accountability, leading to the meeting starting 20 minutes behind schedule.
“The meeting is supposed to start at 9:30, and after half past nine, your colleague stepped out, and we waited for you here. And there was no request for you to be excused. And when you came back, there was no explanation as to why you stepped out, and we are starting the meeting 20 minutes later than we should have,” said an unhappy Zibi as he asked Nthatisi to account for his tardy conduct.
And he blamed it all on lost papers and smokes, as MPs sat in the meeting room, waiting for him and the team.
“Chairperson let me profusely apologise for the inconvenience caused, we really stepped out, but upon coming back we realised that one of our team’s papers was left at the entrance and we then had to interact with the system at the room. I humbly want to apologise for that.”
And I want to be honest with you, I do smoke but one member had to source information for me from back home and while we were doing these calls we got into this entanglement and I would like to once again apologise for the team.
— Gregory Nthatisi, Mangaung metro mayor
But Zibi was not convinced. “That’s my difficulty; it does not explain why you left the room. And we are all looking around for you.”
The mayor found himself in a tight corner.
“We went to the loo,” he said.
“And I want to be honest with you, I do smoke but one member had to source information for me from back home and while we were doing these calls we got into this entanglement and I would like to once again apologise for the team,” was Ntathisi’s response.
The Mangaung metro team was appearing before Scopa to account for three years of consecutive poor audit outcomes, officially called qualified audits with findings.
The AG found growing audit irregularities at the metro, including unauthorised expenditure to the tune of R1.3bn and irregular expenditure of more than R324m.
Some of the money was part of staff overtime pay, including for “ghost workers” languishing in jail.
But Nthatisi downplayed the matter, claiming he was the first to uncover the payments to ghost workers.
“I spoke about ghost workers, and I discovered them. It was out of our own hard work that we discovered that there were ghost workers and that some of the ghost workers were in prison and earning, and others were in different provinces and earning, and that too was a matter that was subjected to law enforcement.”
Nthatisi denied that his office and that of city manager Sello More were bloated.
But MPs were not buying this and want another accountability meeting with the Mangaung executives.
More is also facing the threat of being slapped with a certificate of debt by the office of the AG. That would hold him personally liable for material irregularities incurred by the municipality.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.