Madam Deputy Speaker, a stinging court judgment is being handed down at the Pietermaritzburg High Court against the ANC-led eThekwini Municipality. It relates to an R864 million tender award. In setting aside the award, Judge Daya Pillay said that the actions of the council in awarding the tender amounted to gross negligence, sheer incompetence or lack of capacity, and that the officials were intransigent. They acted in bad faith, indicating that corruption cannot be ruled out. Judge Pillay made a cost award against the municipality because he stated that the litigation was as a result of the unreasonable and unquestionable conduct of its officials.
This comes as the media is highlighting the utter failure of the managers deployed to fix four North West municipalities; in fact, they have made everything in those municipalities worse while being paid R150 000 a month each. According to the report by the Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs, the manager of Taung Local Municipality was suspended after he used nearly R40 000 of municipal money to repair his own car. He appointed his son's company to provide branding material to the municipality, despite the fact that it charged double and was the highest tender, and there had been the sexual harassment of an intern. In the face of all this, we can have no confidence that the Local Government Turnaround Strategy is working. [Applause.]