‘Officials got illegal bonuses’

By Sipho Masondo

THE municipal manager and five directors of the Jeffreys Bay-based Kouga municipality changed council minutes to get themselves paid out more than R400 000 in performance bonuses they didn’t deserve, a forensic audit has alleged.

The allegation is contained in a report commissioned by the Kouga council from auditors Deloitte and Touche, that was leaked to The Herald.

The Kouga council, that administers Jeffreys Bay, St Francis Bay, Humansdorp, Hankey and Patensie has not been far from controversy in recent months.

In January, it was forced to back down – for the second time – on a multi-million rand land deal after opposition from unions and ratepayers.

Late last year, former Jeffreys Bay mayor Booi Koerat was cleared of fraud charges after he it was alleged he falsely obtained a vehicle finance loan from the Kouga council to enable him to settle a R30 600 tax debt with the Receiver of Revenue.

The Deloitte and Touche report reveals that municipal manager Jama Vumazonke “irregularly” received R59 200.

The two directors of community services, Johann Wessel Vlok and Patrick Johnnie Dreyer, each received R71 040.

Technical services director Leon Gouws received R71 040, planning and development director Daniel Jacobus Rautenbach received R71 040 and finance chief Linda Jonker R61 204.

According to the report these payments were irregular in that there were no performance agreements concluded between the individuals and the municipality. They were also not approved by the council’s performance audit committee as required by law.

The report recommended that a disciplinary hearing should be instituted against the implicated officials. It further recommended that council request the implicated directors to repay the bonuses.

According to a memorandum prepared by Vlok, the report said, it was resolved in a council meeting on 16 March 2004 that the directors be paid performance bonuses. Attached to the memorandum were the minutes of a performance audit committee meeting held on 4 March 2004 also recommending that the bonuses be paid to the directors.

“It would appear that the memorandum was fraudulently drafted by Vlok and Vumazonke in that the PAC meeting on March 4 was not validly constituted to make the recommendation. Councilors who attended the same meeting informed us that payments of the bonuses ware never authorised,” said the report.

A certain Mrs Matthee who was co-responsible for the minutes of that meeting on March 16 told the investigators that Vlok had asked a Mrs Krugel “to alter the minutes of the meeting to indicate that the payment of the bonuses was discussed and approved. They were then requested by Vlok to circulate the “corrected minutes” to all the directors who were supposed to receive the bonuses.

“After the minutes were changed they were forwarded to all the directors,” the report said, adding that Vlok would regularly request them to include or delete aspects that were discussed at council meetings, stating that they did not record the minutes correctly.

Krugel supplied the investigators with hand-written notes which didn’t indicate that the council approved the payment of the bonuses.

“We listened to electronic recordings of the meeting and we could find no indication that council approved the payment of the bonuses. We were also informed by Krugel that the memorandum was drafted by Vlok and typed by her (Krugel),” it said.

Vumazonke signed the memorandum. It asked the expenditure manager to pay the bonuses as resolved by council.

Kouga spokesman Phumzile Olifant confirmed the council had decided to investigate the bonus scandal after councillors detected the changes to the minutes last year. “Council minutes were tampered with, and irregularities were detected,” he said.