'Fake whistleblowers want to eat'

Polokwane mayor John Mpe alleges that former contractors were angered by the municipality's decision to do the work itself and not spend millions on fleet card and stadium maintenance tenders

- Lunga Mzangwe

Polokwane mayor John Mpe has accused his detractors of creating the false impression that they were whistleblowers exposing corruption in the city because they were unhappy about being cut off from contracts.

He said the “fake” whistleblowers had contacted municipal manager Thuso Nemugumoni demanding that they also be “allowed to eat”.

This comes after leaked documents surfaced on social media last week purporting to show that the municipality had awarded a tender worth R56 million to Nemugumoni’s boyfriend.

Mpe alleged that one so-called whistleblower had called the city manager, saying: “We are aware that it is your time to eat, we are just saying also allow us to eat.”

“Is that the language of a whistleblower and somebody who wants to fight corruption? If there’s somebody who must benefit from our projects, it’s our community,’ Mpe said.

“You can see that this person might be even from the inside [the municipality]. This has made us realise that we are stopping the rot, hence they have been looking at what they can get from this person [Nemugumoni]. We need to fight corruption — not on the basis of who is benefiting.”

Mpe said some former contractors with the municipality were angry that work previously done by them was now being insourced and were trying to create the impression of widespread corruption in the municipality as payback.

He cited the example of the City of Polokwane taking over the maintenance of the Peter Mokaba Stadium, work which had previously been done by private contractors. The city had also cancelled contracts for fleet cards — credit cards used to manage expenses for municipal vehicles.