The City of Cape Town has terminated the services of the executive director of Urban Waste Management, Luzuko Mdunyelwa, following a forensic report that implicated him as the key figure behind the collapse of the metro’s waste collection system, Cape {town} Etc reports.
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According to News24, during Thursday’s council sitting, the City adopted a disciplinary committee’s recommendation to dismiss Mdunyelwa for misconduct.
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Mdunyelwa was suspended in January after a forensic report tabled in December led to the council calling for disciplinary action.
The report reveals that Cape Town Urban Waste Management MMC Grant Twigg and Luzuko Mdunyelwa implemented a new ’in-house’ waste management model without proper authority.
External service providers have mostly handled waste collection in informal settlements.
In July last year, these services started being carried out in-house.
The report warned that vulnerable communities faced the risk of inadequate service delivery, citing 18 902 complaints, with 7 129 from areas served by external providers.
It also mentioned that in December, the city manager received a high-level investigation report with misconduct allegations against Mdunyelwa.
‘The report indicates that the executive director was not only involved but responsible for changing the service delivery model, which has resulted in the collapse of the service in informal settlements, without any due diligence,’ it said.
Twigg told News24 on Monday that it was unfortunate that Mdunyelwa was officially dismissed.
‘I do believe that the executive director had good intentions in making sure that we attend to the cleanliness of Cape Town. But the process that was followed was not correct, and the outcome from the disciplinary action is that the executive director is now dismissed.’
The disciplinary committee, in findings seen by News24, found Luzuko Mdunyelwa guilty of six counts of misconduct, noting that his evidence was of very poor quality.
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‘It was unlawful and constituted a material breach of the systems act for Dr Mdunyelwa to cause the termination of the extant contracts and to implement the replacement insourced service for cleaning areas without first ensuring compliance,’ the committee said.
The revenue and budget manager for Urban Waste Management, Mawande Mtyi, told the committee that Mdunyelwa’s actions could have cost the City R177.361 million in 2023.
The committee found that this led to R10.253 million in wasteful expenditure. Mdunyelwa denied the allegations and plans to take the matter to the CCMA.
‘I’m definitely going to take this matter to the CCMA because there is so much irregularity about this.’
‘I know that it will sound like I’m angry and upset, but I’ve been in the public service for years.’
‘The disciplinary hearing from the word go was clear there was an agenda to get me out at whatever cost because the charges are frivolous,’ he said.
Mdunyelwa added: ‘As a matter of principle, we cannot allow this. This is what we fought for. We cannot allow people to abuse the law the way they are doing.’
‘I cannot allow that because I was involved in the struggle before 1994. I can never allow that. I can never allow lawyers to abuse the rule of law because they think they have a right.’
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Picture: City of Cape Town / Facebook