Gareth Mnisi. (Photo: X)
The Tshwane Metro Council will hold a special meeting on Thursday to deal with allegations of misconduct against a senior official.
Maroela Media has learned that this refers to a complaint by Lex Middelberg, council member of the Republican Conference, against Gareth Mnisi, Tshwane’s head of finance.
Middelberg accuses him of serious misconduct and misrepresentations on the CV on the basis of which he was appointed to his current position in 2023.
At the time, the council was still under the rule of a multi-party coalition led by Cilliers Brink of the DA. In September 2024 they were lifted from the cushions and the current ActionSA/ANC coalition took over.
The DA’s caucus leader, Jacqui Uys, questions the timing of the complaint and says that although she cannot comment on the merits of the allegations against Mnisi, she believes the attack comes because Mnisi is allegedly standing in the way of a collusion with tenders. A well-informed source in the administration confirmed this to Maroela Media.
The ANC’s Greater Tshwane region demanded Mnisi’s suspension based on, among other things, his “undeclared wealth”, increasing unauthorized, irregular and fruitless expenditure in the metro, and tender-related issues.
Middelberg, who previously tried to bring the matters to the attention of the financial oversight committee and the council but was silenced or ignored, wrote to the city manager, Johann Mettler, and indicated that he would also file criminal charges against Mnisi.
He accuses Mettler of failing “in your duty to check and verify the CV submitted by Mr Mnisi when he applied for the position of CFO…”
Middelberg says his investigations were “fueled by a media report about Mr. Mnisi’s divorce proceedings in which unexplained fabulous wealth was revealed which I estimate at around R80 million – wealth that Mr. Mnisi has built up in less than ten years since he left university.”
“During that time, if one checks his CV, he only earned a salary as a full-time employee; first from the national treasury, then the Thaba Chweu municipality, then the Chief Albert Luthuli local municipality, followed by a period at Rand West City before he was appointed by the Tshwane Metro Council. His salary as a civil servant during this time is known and can in no way even approximate his sudden fabulous wealth, as described in Judge Liebenberg’s ruling on the interim maintenance order, does not declare.”
Middelberg attached the court order to his complaint.
It paints a picture of a young couple who benefited from trusts that owned several luxury properties, who owned or used supercars and luxury vehicles and who traveled abroad frequently – in first class.
The court repeatedly questioned the source of the wealth and Mnisi’s failure to be open and honest about it.
Middelberg describes how he made official requests in terms of the Act on the Promotion of Access to Information (PAIA) to all of Mnisi’s previous employers.
He concluded that:
- Mnisi was never employed by the national treasury as he claimed. He was in fact appointed as a consultant to the Thaba Chweu municipality to help with a mandatory program required by the treasury to improve Thaba Chweu’s financial management capacity and was paid by the municipality.
- Mnisi’s claims of clean audits and that he achieved 95% of his key performance indicators during his tenure as chief financial officer at the Chief Albert Luthuli local municipality are inconsistent with the Auditor General’s (AG) reports for those periods.
- Mnisi is an active director of five companies, but never declared his involvement in or income from these companies or trusts to the Tshwane Metro Council.
Tshwane House (Photo: Jacques Naude/African News Agency/ANA)
Middelberg rejects Mnisi’s claims about his tenure at Thaba Chweu, including that he “ensured compliance with contractual, local, provincial and national laws and regulations” and points to repeated caveats by the AG. He also questions Mnisi’s role in a disastrous public-private partnership (PPP) with China Sinogy Electric Engineering Co (CSEEC) for the construction of the Duma substation.
Middelberg is asking for Mnisi’s immediate suspension pending a formal investigation by the council into his allegations.
His complaint comes against the background of Tshwane’s clean-up budget which was accepted last week and which the deputy mayor, the ANC’s Eugene Modise, described as credible and properly funded.
However, a leaked presentation that Mnisi gave to the budget steering committee before the revised budget was approved shows a falling collection rate of 83.5% and substantial cash shortages with billions of rand in outstanding payments to creditors, mainly small businesses, as well as spending that exceeds the budget by millions of rand.
In response, the DA wrote to the national treasury and requested an intervention. They maintain that the metro council’s expenditure is largely under-reported due to delayed invoices and that this, together with poor collections, means that the budget is in fact under-funded.
