The Sedibeng District Municipality has blamed poor police investigation after the case into the 2023 theft of its R465,000 mayoral chain was closed.

Police closed the matter in July this year and informed Sedibeng municipal manager Motsumi Mathe via e-mail. In the e-mail, Mathe was told by the police that the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) declined to prosecute the case.

Mathe then wrote back to the senior officer in charge of the investigation to request the reasons given by the NPA when it decided to withdraw the case.

According to the municipality, to date, no reasons have been furnished to it, and the municipal council is yet to deliberate on the matter.

“The investigation was conducted poorly as there were no updates or feedback to the municipality, thus the municipal manager submitted a formal complaint to the deputy district commissioner, Brigadier Mbangwa Nkwashu, who sadly never responded,” the municipality explained in its report submitted to Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Cooperative Governance, standing committees on Public Accounts and the Auditor-General, as well as the Gauteng provincial legislature during a recent oversight visit.

The Sedibeng District Municipality accused the police’s investigation team of failing to provide updates on the progress made for the whole of 2024.

Mathe then involved Community Safety MMC Busang Tsotetsi, who notified relevant seniors within the SA Police Service about the stagnant status of the investigation.

The mayoral chain was last seen in June 2023 after Mayor Lerato Maloka’s State of the District Address, and it has been kept in her office since then, as per her instruction.

However, its disappearance was only discovered in December 2023, just before the commencement of the commemoration ceremony on the signing of the Constitution.

The municipality also stated that the mayoral chain was only used during special occasions, hence it was always kept in a secure vault for safekeeping.

On the day it was discovered that the mayoral chain was missing, Maloka reported the matter to the Vereeniging police station, and two officers arrived to take statements.

The officers took statements from Maloka’s then-acting personal assistant, the head of protection services, and Mathe, who later complained that the statements were made but were not signed until March of the following year.

The preliminary investigation showed that there was no break-in reported in the mayor’s office, and the cameras were not operational at the time of the incident.

In addition, the report on the theft was never tabled before council since the mayoral chain got lost in 2023.

DA Sedibeng caucus leader Sibusiso Dyonase said the party has written to speaker Moipone Modikeng to table the report to council, which is scheduled to sit next Thursday.

Both the Gauteng police and the NPA had not responded to requests for comment on Tuesday.

loyiso.sidimba@inl.co.za

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