A senior official of the Umkhanyakude District Municipality in northern KwaZulu-Natal has been given until Friday this week to explain why he should not be suspended.
In a letter signed by the acting Municipal Manager, Dr Siya Ntuli, the municipality’s General Manager for Corporate Services, Phakamani Khumalo, is primarily accused of dubiously taking up a position he did not qualify for and later abusing it.
Amongst other issues, he is also accused of using his position to mobilise workers to stage a shutdown that crippled the municipality late last year.
“You as a manager responsible for human resource management and control of staff, facilitated a complete shutdown of the municipality by employees during July and August 2025, consequently the municipality was unable to ensure billing of customers, which on its own negatively affected its projected own revenue for the 2025/2026 financial year as per the approved budget.
“Service delivery disruptions left municipal operations severely impacted. It was through your administrative leadership that the council failed to deliver on its constitutional mandate to provide services to the people of UMkhanyakude District Municipality,” reads the notice to suspend that was sent to Khumalo.
He is also accused of being law unto himself, illegally hiring staff and signing contracts with service providers, thus illegally bleeding the troubled municipality of over R350 million.
“You as a responsible HOD, deliberately or negligently made Payments on expired contracts and/or payments made when there is no SLA with the following amounts (R 176 721 386,45, R 2 182 674 769,45, R 191 686 044,46, R 112 284 448,34, and many this), which increased UIFWE.
“You championed the irregular appointment of water carting service providers, resulting in irregular expenditure amounting to R46 788 700,98. You certified payments for the Water Carting service providers, which are payments for services that are substandard or services that were never rendered. These payments have resulted in the irregular expenditure of R46 788 700,98,” further reads the letter.
Furthermore, Khumalo is accused of failing to execute his duties as a manager responsible for the fleet management of the municipality, in that municipal vehicles were not included in the municipal fixed asset register, which implies that the council does not know how many vehicles it has.
“Anyone can even sell or dispose of the municipal vehicles at any time. b. The whereabouts of this municipal vehicles, particularly water tankers, are not known in the municipality. C. All municipal vehicles are unlicensed, which poses a serious risk to the rendering of delivery of service.
He is also accused of failing to properly manage the staff of the municipality.
“You deliberately or negligently allowed staff members to be absent without reporting and or abuses the leave system since you did not ensure proper leave management. This has led to many employees being absent for months in the municipality without consequences.”
