With Nelson Mandela Bay’s city manager now on suspension, the government has shifted its attention to the city’s executive mayor Gary van Niekerk. He has to answer to fraud allegations levelled against him.
As pressure from the Eastern Cape government mounts, NMB council speaker Eugene Johnson launched an inquiry into whether Van Niekerk breached the code of conduct for councillors when he used the services of a law firm, costing the city half a million rand.
Van Niekerk appointed Boqwana Burns Incorporated (BBI) to represent him in a legal dispute with political rivals that had attempted to expel him from his party.
Van Niekerk used the municipality’s letterhead to enlist legal services, while his position as councillor and speaker was up in the air.
A legal bill of R551,586 was racked up for various tasks, and more than a year later, the law firm is battling to get the municipality to pay for its services.
This has led to questions on the legality of his actions from the national treasury and provincial government, as well as various opposition parties in the city.
Johnson said she had reached out to the national treasury to provide a legal expert to assist with her investigation. “I have informed the mayor about what is going on. I will now be making a report and it will be tabled at council,” she said.
Eastern Cape’s MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, Zolile Williams, said there was a breach of the code.
“This is the alleged action of Van Niekerk in appointing a service provider on behalf of the municipality. The appointment letter which was signed on 8 June 2022 is therefore a clear breach of the code of conduct which warrants action,” said Williams.
Williams said he’d instructed Johnson to form an ad hoc committee to investigate the allegations. The allegations surfaced in September and have caught the attention of the directorate for priority crimes, The Hawks, which is investigating a case of fraud.
Reacting to Johnson’s probe, Van Niekerk criticised Johnson, saying she should have allowed him to respond to the allegations.
“If there were allegations directed at the speaker, she was supposed to inform me and give me a chance to make inputs — and then decide whether it needed to go to the rules and ethics committee. They would make the determination on whether to take it to council.”