{"id":913722,"date":"2022-01-05T20:16:16","date_gmt":"2022-01-05T20:16:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/news\/2022\/01\/05\/arrest-warrant-for-cape-town-attorney-allegedly-involved-in-municipal-corruption-not-executed\/"},"modified":"2022-01-05T20:16:16","modified_gmt":"2022-01-05T20:16:16","slug":"arrest-warrant-for-cape-town-attorney-allegedly-involved-in-municipal-corruption-not-executed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/01\/05\/arrest-warrant-for-cape-town-attorney-allegedly-involved-in-municipal-corruption-not-executed\/","title":{"rendered":"Arrest warrant for Cape Town attorney allegedly involved in municipal corruption not executed"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Cape Town – A fourth suspect, a city attorney allegedly involved in municipal corruption in the City through alleged fraudulent over-billing for repairs and maintenance by a subcontractor, is yet to be arrested, despite a warrant for him.<\/p>\n

Anti-crime activist Hanif Loonat, who had lodged a complaint of corruption with the police in August 2020, said he was unhappy and claimed that the arrest warrant had been rescinded.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Loonat alleged foul play by the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA).<\/p>\n

\u201cI am disturbed that the court found justification and a case for the alleged perpetrators to be arrested, and now it seems as if favours are being offered to the fourth suspect,\u201d Loonat said.<\/p>\n

The NPA was contacted several times but failed to respond to Loonat\u2019s allegations. On Monday, NPA Western Cape spokesperson Eric Ntabazalila said he would forward the information provided to the prosecutors. Ntabazalila was again approached yesterday, but failed to respond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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MORE ON THIS<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Three suspects already appeared in court in connection with tender fraud worth about R600 million. They are Asif Khan, director of the Construction Co, former police officer Paul Scheepers, and the City\u2019s Special Investigating Unit head, Reynold Talmakkies.<\/p>\n

Their court appearance followed investigations by the Hawks into the alleged fraud within the City\u2019s housing directorate.<\/p>\n

Last month, the City said its forensic investigation unit had completed a report into the alleged corruption and that the report was in the review phase. Once this process had been completed, the report would assist the Hawks with its ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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About an update on the matter, the City said: \u201cThe report is currently in the review phase and will be handed over to the Hawks when this process has been completed. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe City has a zero-tolerance approach to corruption. Those found guilty of corruption or malfeasance will face the full force of the law. <\/p>\n

\u201cRevised and improved processes will be implemented to boost control measures. These internal control measures will also be under continuous review.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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#SA1stForum convener advocate Rod Solomons aid it was encouraging to see that arrests were made.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow the City handles this matter will give a practical indication as to how serious the new mayor and his administration are about tackling corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

African Christian Democratic Party caucus leader Marvin Christians said: \u201cIn August 2021, a Corruption Watch report titled South Africa Needs Clean Hands was released. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIn this report, the City of Cape Town ranked fifth among the country\u2019s municipalities with the highest number of reported corruption allegations. <\/p>\n

\u201cSince then, we have seen little to nothing being done about this especially regarding irregularities in procurement processes which contributes 17% towards the above mentioned report,\u201d Christians said.<\/p>\n

[email protected]<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cape Town – A fourth suspect, a city attorney allegedly involved in municipal corruption in the City through alleged fraudulent over-billing for repairs and maintenance by a subcontractor, is yet to be arrested, despite a warrant for him. Anti-crime activist Hanif Loonat, who had lodged a complaint of corruption with the police in August 2020, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-913722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913722","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=913722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/913722\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=913722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=913722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ghanamma.com\/2022\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=913722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}