The Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality said it wants to launch an investigation into six identified aspects of the Kabuso forensic report on maladministration within the municipality.
The report, released back in 2014, came under the spotlight again on Monday at a media conference held by Executive Mayor, Athol Trollip and the chairperson of the municipal public accounts committee, Lance Grootboom.
"Given the amount of time that has elapsed since many of these acts of alleged maladministration and corruption took place, several items cannot be pursued due to missing evidence or untraceable defendants," Trollip said.
Trollip said there was substantial evidence to launch an investigation and the defendants are traceable to take action against them.
"However, I would like to propose pursuing those matters of which evidence exists and defendants are traceable. The severity of acts of corruption does not diminish with time, and while this government will not spend its tenure looking backwards, we consider the Kabusi Report to be worthy of discernment," he said.
Trollip said the report contains recommendations of legal action against Buhlebendalo Properties, the eviction of Madiba Bay Resorts and the recovery of all rates and tariffs owed to the municipality by Isimilo Investments.
Trollip said they have looked at possible criminal prosecutions and have written to the City Manager, Johan Mettler, asking him to advise the defendants to obtain legal opinion.
"Each directorate that is responsible for each one of these issues must get legal opinion and then give it to the MPAC to make an informed decision. We're not going to accept the bonifiders of the previous administration because many people in the previous administration were implicated in some if these issues," Trollip concluded.
Grootbom said it will now take up to two to three months to determine the way forward as due process needs to be followed.
