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The ANC in Tshwane wants the City to be placed under administration and President Cyril Ramaphosa to assign the Special Investigating Unit to probe allegations of looting there since the DA took over in 2016.

These were some of the remedies suggested on Wednesday at a media briefing which the party’s newly-elected chairperson Dr Kgosi Maepa and the party’s caucus in the council held.

The party leadership expressed “disgust” and sought to expose what it termed “historic capex grand theft by the DA administration”.

This is linked to reports in the Sunday Times over the weekend which stated that Municipal Manager Moeketsi Mosola brought in Midrand-based engineering consultancy firm GladAfrica to manage infrastructure projects worth R12bn, despite being advised that doing so was illegal.

Mosola, who held a media briefing ahead of the ANC’s address, detailed processes around the deal in an attempt to clear his name, saying that appointing GladAfrica was “in compliance with legislative prescripts governing the City of Tshwane’s supply chain management and the Municipal Finance Management Act”.

But Maepa read from a statement: “It cannot be business as usual anymore when kleptomaniacs such as these continue to remain at the helm of the City and its departments.”

Maepa claimed that the DA-led administration outsourced the City’s multi-billion-rand expenditure budget to GladAfrica.

He said, through the tender, GladAfrica became a “middleman”, which service providers and those seeking to do business with the City had to go through.

“Bringing in the consultancy has dramatically inflated prices as the consultancy fees are way beyond accepted rates as approved by the Engineering Council of South Africa and the Department of Public Service and Administration,” he complained.

He added that this meant the DA-led municipality had done away with a competitive bidding process, which was the norm.

The ANC also shared its views on what it believed should happen to the municipal manager, saying he should be suspended immediately and that it would pursue criminal charges against Mosola.

It also recommended that MEC of Local Government Uhuru Moila should place the municipality under administration.

“The MEC of Local Government in Gauteng must immediately invoke Section 106 (1)(b) [of the Municipal Systems Act],” said Moepa.

This would lead to the setting up of an investigation into allegations of maladministration, fraud, corruption or any other serious malpractices occurring in a municipality.

The ANC has also said that it would approach the Public Protector to investigate their complaint.

The ANC also wants Tshwane Mayor Solly Msimanga to step down.

Msimanga, who Moepa called “Mr I Don’t Know” and “Mr I Was Not There”, was warned against distancing himself from the scandal. The ANC regional chair said Msimanga’s job meant he had to play an oversight role.

Msimanga earlier released a statement accusing the ANC of being hypocritical and claiming that investigations into the GladAfrica tender were continuing.

“I again put on record that we are diligently investigating this matter and have been doing so for some time now. I am nevertheless mystified by the ANC’s hypocritical call to investigate corruption when it is this DA-led multi-party government [which] has taken several contracts concluded by the previous administration on judicial review,” Msimanga said.

He said the ANC has been linked to the West Capital Project, the PEU Smart Meter Project, the Moipone Fleet Contract and the Broadband Contract.

The ANC, however, is yet to give dates for when it plans to take its complaints to both the Public Protector and the police. It has assured journalists that it had uncovered numerous other scandals in the DA-led municipality.

The owner of the firearm that was found next to the body of co-author of The Lost Boys of Bird Island Mark Minnie, could be charged with negligence.

Police spokesperson Captain Johan Rheeder said the owner, believed to be a friend of Minnie’s, could be charged after his firearm was found near to Minnie’s body.

Rheeder added that, although a case has not yet been opened, it was standard procedure.

Fifty-eight-year-old Minnie was found on the friend’s smallholding in Theescombe on Monday evening and he had a gunshot wound to the head. The firearm was next to his body.

READ: Mark Minnie did not use his own firearm in alleged suicide – police

Rheeder also confirmed that an autopsy had been performed on Minnie on Tuesday.

He said blood samples were taken and gun residue tests on Minnie’s hands were done before they were sent to a forensics laboratory in Cape Town for testing.

Responding to rumours that Minnie was shot between the eyes, Rheeder said he could confirm that Minnie had sustained a single gunshot wound to the head, but could not be more specific about the location of the wound.

He added that the death was still being treated as an inquest.

Minnie was the co-author of the controversial book, The Lost Boys of Bird Island, which details allegations that former apartheid minister Magnus Malan was part of a paedophile network.

Since news of his death broke, many have questioned the timing and nature of Minnie’s death.

“There is no way that he would have taken his own life. What is happening is very scary. Clearly, there is more to this,” said a former colleague, who worked with Minnie when he was in the police narcotics unit in the 1980s. The person did not want to be named.

Another colleague, who also asked to remain anonymous, described Minnie as a man who “worked hard and played hard”.

“He was a bit of a maverick, but he got things done. He had a wide network of contacts back then,” he said.  

News24 previously reported that the book detailed how three former National Party ministers, including one who is still alive, were alleged central figures in a paedophile ring that operated during apartheid.

Investigations into Malan – as well as John Wiley (former minister of environmental affairs) and another former minister, who was considered a possible successor to then president PW Botha and who is still alive – were halted by the police, and the investigating officer was hounded from service in the 1980s.

These and other explosive allegations are contained in the book by Minnie, a former police officer, and Chris Steyn, a former investigative journalist.

According to the book, Malan, Wiley and the other minister were involved, along with disgraced Port Elizabeth businessman Dave Allen, in ferrying coloured minors to Bird Island, in Algoa Bay near Port Elizabeth, where the children were molested and forced to satisfy the older men’s sexual fantasies.

Malan died in 2011, while Wiley and Allen’s deaths in 1987 were recorded as suicides, fuelling the speculation around Minnie’s death.