City of Tshwane Says Failure to Verify Makwarela’s Rehabilitation Order Highlights Gaps in SA’s Municipalities

• The City of Tshwane has attempted to smooth things over following the drama involving the disgraced former mayor Murunwa Makwarela
• The city has admitted that the failure to verify the rehabilitation order Makwarela submitted highlighted the deficiencies in the municipality
• The city vowed to work on filling in the gaps in the metro and fixing its verification processes

TSHWANE - The City of Tshwane has been left red-faced after it unknowingly accepted a fake rehabilitation order from former Tshwane mayor Murunwa Makwarela.

The debacle has placed a stoplight on the deficiencies in the metro's administration, with the city admitting that it did not have the measures in place to verify the authenticity of the disgraced mayor's rehabilitation order.

Makwarela made headlines when he was disqualified as a councillor and subsequently removed a Tshwane mayor on Tuesday, 7 March, after the Democratic Alliance revealed that he was an unrehabilitated insolvent.

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However, the embattled Cope member was quickly reinstated on Thursday, 9 March, after her producer a court order which claimed Makwarela had been rehabilitated in 2018.

Many questioned the authenticity of the rehabilitation order, and the constant back-and-forth over Makwarela's insolvency came to a head when the Gauteng High Court revealed that the document was a forgery, EWN reported.

In what seemed to be an attempt to save face, Makwarela resigned as mayor on Friday, 10 March, under the pretence that he wanted to protect the image of the office.

According to the City of Tshwane's head of communication, Selby Bokaba, although the situation with Makwarela was unfortunate, it has opened the city up to finding ways to deal with verifying documents.

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Bokaba said that inadequate vetting processes are not unique to Tshwane and are problems that plague most, if not all, municipalities in South Africa.

According to SABC News, Bokaba insisted the city was focused on remedying the deficiencies in the City of Tshwane's vetting processes.

Cope attempts to distance itself from Murunwa Makwarela’s fake document saga, SA not buying it

In a related story, Briefly News reported that the Congress of the People (Cope) apologised to citizens for the “wrongdoings” of former Tshwane mayor Murunwa Makwarela.

The political party’s deputy president, Willie Madisha, spoke outside Tshwane House on Friday, 10 March. The address came after Makwarela’s sudden resignation from his recently appointed position.

His departure came after the high court refuted claims that he was granted a rehabilitation certificate over his insolvency case. Makwarela handed the fake document over to city manager Johann Mettler.

Source: Briefly News