Tshwane Mayor Nasiphi Moya is in hot water and will soon face the rules and ethics committee to answer for her administration’s mishandling of financial budget reports.
She has been accused of missing deadlines for submitting these critical reports and misleading the council about their readiness last month.
The committee is expected to scrutinise her actions, seeking accountability and transparency regarding allegations of misleading the council.
This was after DA chief whip Ofentse Madzebatela referred her to the rules and ethics committee during a council meeting on Tuesday at Tshwane House.
Madzebatela slammed Moya for disregarding his advice last month that the reports were due for submission.
The reports under scrutiny are Section 71 and Section 72 in-year financial budget reports, which are mandatory submissions in accordance with the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA) of 2003.
In terms of the Act, the reports should have been submitted to the council within 30 days after the end of each quarter, with the latest quarter ending on December 31, 2024.
Moya said: “It is quite unfortunate that we find ourselves in this position to consider these reports later than the date when they were supposed to be considered. I do want to render my apology to this council and to give assurance that it will not happen again. I will make sure that we will comply going forward.”
Madzebatela said: “As much as we accept the apology because the mayor lied, we want to refer her to the rules and ethics committee.”
He said the reports keep the council, National Treasury, Provincial Treasury, and the public informed of the financial situation of the municipality “and so if the deadline for its delivery is missed without an explanation, we have reason to be worried”.
He said Moya “lied” in the presence of the Auditor-General and the chairperson of the municipal audit and performance committee who was in the council chamber last month to present the city’s qualified audit report for the 2023/24 financial year.
In a media statement, Moya said: “While the reports were submitted to the National Treasury and Provincial Treasury on 14 January 2025, in compliance with legislative deadlines, they were not tabled at the scheduled council meeting on January 30 2025 due to delays in the internal committee system.”
She said the city has formally written to the Gauteng MEC for Finance, Lebogang Maile, outlining the circumstances that led to the delay and detailing corrective measures to strengthen internal reporting mechanisms.
Former finance MMC, also DA councillor, Jacqui Uys, warned against using delayed reports “to set up Section 56 managers for failure so that you can come back and say it was Section 56 managers who dropped the ball”.
“I hope this is not a further purge on our Section 56 managers,” she said.
Her comments were made after the former governance and support officer (GSO) Ashraf Adam, a Section 56 manager, resigned allegedly after the EFF’s political attacks against him. The EFF has flatly denied the allegations.
Finance MMC, Eugene Modise, said the Section 56 managers were governed by the performance management contracts “and it is not something that we can debate here”.
He said: “We are now improving on the rates and taxes collection and we are doing this because we have managed to step up and ensure that we shy away from the estimates. We are sitting at 95% as we speak. We are not backsliding. The city manager has embarked on the consequences management on the late reports.”