Durban — The Durban High Court heard how the allegations of tender irregularities came to the attention of the City Integrity and Investigations Unit (CIIU) of eThekwini Municipality, in the case of former mayor Zandile Gumede and others.
The head of the CIIU in the City, Mbuso Ngcobo, who is a witness, told the court on Wednesday that an anonymous individual came into their offices and left a stack of documents, and the complainant indicated that the documents would be used for investigation as they showed irregularities with the tender.
Ngcobo said whoever that individual was, also left a letter with allegations, but did not name any individuals. He told the court that when the information was found on the reception desk, left anonymously, they looked at it.
Ngcobo said when they received the report/documents they checked if they could work on them and curated them on their system.
“We check if the complaint is in our jurisdiction and if it is something we can work on. Sometimes it happens that a complainant lodged a complaint that is already in court, we don’t interfere with it,” he explained.
Advocate Jay Naidoo, representing Gumede and others, asked Ngcobo why some of the forms requiring the investigation to take place were not filled in.
Ngcobo responded that it was not possible to fill in certain parts of the forms as all the documents were left at the reception anonymously.
“We could not fill in other information, as the person who left the documents was not seen. As a CIIU team, we do different work so I am unable to answer some questions; however, if the court wants some people to come and clarify that will not be a problem.”
Ngcobo said he signed for the investigation to go ahead based on the allegations in the report. He told the court that the matter was then handed over to IFS (Investigations and Forensic Solutions), which recommended that a criminal investigation should take place.
The matter was handed over to the police and his department had to step away to allow the investigation to continue. He said while the investigation was taking place he did not interfere, but he introduced Sipho Nzuza who was at the time the eThekwini Municipality manager, to the investigating officers.
“I introduced him to the investigation officer and left. I was under the impression he would be a State witness,” said Ngcobo.
The matter continues on Thursday.
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