eThekwini City Manager Musa Mbhele has told councillors in a formal written reply that the recommend ndations of two forensic investigations into Metro Police recruitment corruption have been implemented while stating in the same document that some disciplinary processes have only commenced, others remain underway, and further affidavits and supporting evidence are still being obtained.
The apparent contradiction is now the subject of a second set of formal questions to the accounting officer, filed on 1 September by ActionSA councillor and eThekwini mayoral candidate Zwakele Mncwango in terms of Section 27(3) of the municipality’s Rules of Order, a mechanism that obliges the City Manager to answer Council in writing.
“Your response states that the recommendations of both reports have been implemented, yet it also states that some disciplinary processes have only commenced, some processes are still underway, and further affidavits and supporting evidence are still being obtained,” the follow-up letter reads.
“This appears inconsistent with the statement that all recommendations have been implemented.”
Mncwango has asked Mbhele to specify which recommendations are complete, which are in progress, which are outstanding, and which officials are responsible for implementing each one.
The paper trail begins on 27 August, when Mncwango put fifteen questions to Mbhele about two internal investigations: the Nexus Report, which examined Metro Police recruitment intakes in the 2017/18 and 2018/19 financial years, and the Isiqu Report, which examined the 2023/24 intake.
His opening letter put two allegations to the accounting officer, that Nexus had identified approximately 590 Metro Police officers as irregularly or unlawfully appointed, and that Isiqu had implicated eight senior Metro Police officials in the alleged sale of jobs involving roughly R20 million.
The municipality has since disputed both figures. At a media briefing on 2 September, Mbhele said the Nexus Report compiled by the City’s Integrity and Investigations Directorate and concluded in 2020 flagged four appointments as irregular, and that following legal processes pursued by the municipality, those appointments were upheld.
On the Isiqu Report, he said disciplinary steps had been recommended against four officials, an authorised officer, two human capital employees and a business support employee. The report found that approximately R420,000 changed hands, with 71 members of the public allegedly scammed by one employee who promised jobs that never materialised.
Metro Police Commissioner Sbonelo Mchunu has urged residents to be wary of people posing as officials and soliciting bribes on the false promise of employment.
The gap between the two accounts is the substance of Mncwango’s third follow-up question. His letter accepts the city’s answer that only four appointments were ultimately found irregular, then asks the obvious next question, how did a process that began with roughly 590 questioned appointments end with four?
“Please provide the basis for this conclusion, what happened to the four irregular appointments, and what action was taken against the officials responsible,” he writes.
The 590 figure is not new. In October 2021 the Abantu Batho Congress publicly demanded the release of the Nexus report, citing 590 irregular appointments and pointing to specific pages listing 70 people appointed outside mandatory recruitment processes and a further 63 said to be irregularly appointed. The municipality did not release it then. It has not released it since.
Mncwango’s follow-up letter records the Nexus Report as dated 12 December 2020. That date does significant work in the letter.
It establishes that the municipality has held findings on Metro Police recruitment for close to six years, and it frames a question the City Manager has not yet answered: whether any recommendations were delayed, who was responsible for the delay, and what consequence management followed where officials failed to act in time.
A related question goes to Council’s own sightline over the matter. Mbhele’s response, according to the letter, states that quarterly investigation and consequence-management reports are submitted to the Executive Committee and Council, but does not identify when the Nexus and Isiqu matters were actually reported.
Mncwango has asked for the dates and the specific meetings.
The letter also records that only one DMPS authorised officer was placed on precautionary suspension, while other officials against whom disciplinary action was recommended remained at work.
Mncwango has asked what criteria or risk assessment determined that distinction, why one official was removed from the workplace while others facing recommended disciplinary action continued in their posts.
His first letter framed the same issue more bluntly, if it is correct that only a junior constable has been suspended, why has accountability apparently not extended upward?
On criminal referrals, the follow-up letter states that Mbhele’s response confirmed criminal cases have been opened with the South African Police Service, but did not supply the CAS numbers, dates or police stations that were specifically requested. Those details have now been asked for again, together with the nature of the alleged offences.
Mbhele’s response, per the letter, confirmed that councillors may access both reports through the Legal and Compliance Directorate. Mncwango has converted that into a formal demand for immediate access to the complete Nexus and Isiqu reports, subject only to lawful redactions, with a specific legal basis to be provided for anything withheld.
He is not alone. DA eThekwini mayoral candidate Haniff Hoosen has called for the report’s release and warned of possible legal action, arguing that the public is entitled to know whether recruitment processes were manipulated, whether appointments were unlawful, who was responsible and what consequences followed.
IFP caucus leader in eThekwini, Councillor Mdu Nkosi, has said press statements must be converted into action and that those who paid for jobs should not be in the system.
Mbhele has said the report will be released pending consultation with the city’s legal teams, and that it contains sensitive material that could jeopardise the police investigation.
The final item in Mncwango’s follow-up is unnumbered in substance but not in intent.
“Have you ever discussed the Nexus and/or Isiqu Reports, their findings or the alleged sale of Metro Police jobs with the Mayor?” it reads. “If yes, when did these discussions take place, what matters were raised, and what was the Mayor’s response or instruction, if any?”
It is the only question in either letter that reaches beyond the administration into the political executive, and it is asked of an accounting officer who is required to answer it in writing.
That context is relevant to how the questions are read. Mncwango is ActionSA’s mayoral candidate for eThekwini ahead of the November local government elections, in a contest that also features the DA’s Hoosen, the IFP’s Mkhuleko Hlengwa and the EFF’s Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi. Metro Police credibility is live campaign material for all of them.
But Section 27(3) is not a campaign instrument. It is a rule of order, and the answers it produces are records of Council.
Whatever the political motive for asking, the accounting officer’s written replies stand on their own and it is his own written reply, not his opponents’ allegations, that now contains the inconsistency he has been asked to explain.
