Media statement 14 December 2023
Cllr Cilliers Brink
Executive Mayor of Tshwane
Today, I announce a change to the Mayoral Committee in the City of Tshwane. Earlier this month, the MMC for Finance, Ald Peter Sutton, informed me that he has been offered a senior management position in the private sector, which he has accepted.
Ald Sutton will stay on as a DA councillor but has asked to be released from his duties as a member of the Mayoral Committee. He agreed to stay on until 4 January 2024 to allow me to appoint a successor. I am now in a position to do so.
Honour and thanks go to Ald Peter Sutton as he takes up his role in the private sector.
Rescuing the capital city from financial ruin remains our most important priority, and the key to improving service delivery and building a capital city that works for all its people. I want to thank Ald Sutton for his tireless contribution to this effort.
He leaves the finance portfolio in the City in a better position than when he found it, and with a new management team in place to drive a culture of performance and accountability.
Having previously served as the Chairperson of the Section 79 Oversight Committee on Finance from 2016 to 2021, Ald Sutton was appointed as MMC for Finance during the most difficult time in the City’s history.
In March 2020, Council was dissolved by the Gauteng Provincial Government – a decision later set aside as unconstitutional and invalid. The disastrous period of administration coincided with the COVID-19 lockdown. It was characterised by a breakdown of internal systems and controls, as well as a collapse in revenue collection.
After the 2021 local government elections, Ald Sutton oversaw the Tshwane ya Tima campaign, an aggressive drive to collect outstanding revenue owed to the City. This campaign was a great success and has informed our subsequent plans.
In his role as MMC, Ald Sutton kept probing the then Chief Financial Officer (CFO) about the state of the City’s management accounts. And he unearthed information that had deliberately been withheld from the Mayoral Committee, Council and the public, including a multibillion-rand VAT liability on the 2013 PEU-TUMS smart meter contract.
The non-disclosure had clearly been part of a management culture in the City of papering over and obfuscating irregularities committed by senior officials and past administrations. In the aftermath of the City’s adverse audit in 2021/22, Ald Sutton has been working with the City Manager, Johann Mettler, to fix problems that had long been papered over.
The City now has a new CFO, Gareth Mnisi. Disciplinary action is being taken against the divisional heads of revenue management and supply chain management, and new managers are place in these divisions to support the work of the CFO.
As I said in my State of the Capital Address in May this year, we do not yet expect a positive audit outcome for the 2022/23 financial year due to the sheer complexity of the Auditor-General’s findings.
But we will make significant progress, especially in restoring systems and controls in the management of cash flow and creditors. Fixing the City’s asset register will necessarily take longer given the complexity of the work required to respond to the Auditor-General’s finding.
After consultation with the different members of the City of Tshwane multiparty coalition, I have decided to appoint Cllr Jacqui Uys as the MMC for Finance.
Jacqui is a senior member of the DA and coalition management team. As Chairperson of the Coalition Management Committee since its establishment in 2021, she has played a critical role in holding our coalition together.
She holds a Bachelor of Commerce Honours degree from the North West University and has private sector management experience. As a member of the Section 79 Oversight Committee on Finance since 2016, she has strong grasp of the policy issues central to the role of the finance portfolio.
Most importantly, she has the vim and vigour to apply her knowledge to the job of MMC for Finance.
I have the fullest confidence in our new finance team to accomplish the City’s financial rescue mission, and so build a capital city that works for all its people.
Media enquiries: Sipho Stuurman (siphost@tshwane.gov.za