The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality says a team of investigators has over the last few months discovered more than 2100 hidden municipal leases.
The Municipality says in a statement that a forensic audit of a small sample of these leases has revealed eleven cases of outright corruption and theft.
These alone have lost the Municipality more than R4 million - a figure that rises every month
Extrapolated out, the 2100 uncovered leases could be losing the Metro hundreds of millions of rand every year.
The major findings relate to illegal subletting, irregular leasing, illegal occupation and irregular application of council resolutions.
Certain individuals are believed to be involved in many of the cases, which suggests the possibly of an organised syndicate-like operation.
The Metro warns that its coalition government will not be lenient with those implicated in irregularities.
It says public money will be recovered, those responsible will be dismissed and suspects will be handed over to the police for criminal proceedings.
