As the Durban High Court on Wednesday learned that the number of houses that needed waste collection in December 2017 had doubled, during cross-examination, it emerged that the audit report, which provides the number of households, may be inaccurate. 

The Durban Solid Waste (DSW) tender fraud case involves the former mayor of eThekwini Municipality, Zandile Gumede, and 21 others. They all face multiple charges of fraud, racketeering, corruption, money laundering, contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act, and the Municipal Systems Act relating to the R320 million DSW tender. 

When the State witness, who worked at the Solid Waste Unit in 2017, compared the number of households that were in the closed tender drafted in December 2017, following Allan Robert Abbu’s instruction, she said there was an 86,431 difference between the tender and the Audit Report. Abbu is the fourth accused and was the deputy head of the Solid Waste Unit.

The witness, who cannot be named, stated that the number of households that are put in the tender’s bid specifications comes from an audit report.

The audit report is compiled, among other things, using field sheets and aerial photographs for areas that need waste collection services. In her evidence-in-chief, she said she was not in a position to explain where the additional numbers came from. 

The defence had also challenged the State when it tried to put a proposition that the additional numbers were dictated by Abbu to a contract administrator who drafted the December tender document. 

Advocate Jay Naidoo SC, counsel for Abbu, said the contract administrator who has testified never said this.

During his cross-examination, Naidoo, who is also representing Gumede, took the witness through the audit report.

He read a page where there is a declaration by the auditors, and in one of the columns in that page, he said it is written Accuracy and Validity Risk. 

“Data on the measurement/payment certificates indicating the percentage of households with access to a basic level of solid waste removal may be invalid or inaccurate,” Naidoo read. 

Naidoo asked the witness what this meant.

The witness said the report was compiled by the city’s internal auditors. She also stated that the aerial photographs used in the audit report were taken in 2011. 

The trial continues.

nomonde.zondi@inl.co.za

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