Harper paid R2m to stay at home

[caption id="attachment_169892" align="aligncenter" width="500"] Trevor Harper.
Picture from archives.[/caption]

Bay taxpayers foot hefty salary bill as disciplinary process drags on

Suspended Nelson Mandela Bay chief financial officer Trevor Harper is still drawing a salary a year after he was suspended and has been paid almost R2-million so far while the disciplinary process drags on.

He is one of 15 municipal officials being paid to sit at home.

Harper, who was suspended on November 25 last year, is facing an inquiry for payments made to Afrisec, which performed work for the controversial Integrated Public Transport System (IPTS).

He is accused by the municipality of negligently signing off on payments worth R34.6-million to Afrisec without a lawful contract in place.

In June, Harper was cleared of allegations of wrongdoing in another matter involving R7.8-million that was paid to Fareed Fakir’s company, Erastyle, for the development of a marketing strategy for the IPTS bus system.

In that matter, a disciplinary board ruled that there was insufficient evidence to warrant a full investigation into Harper’s role.

His salary costs the taxpayer R1927224 a year.

Harper referred all questions to his attorney, Grant Howard.

Howard said Harper had first appeared before the disciplinary tribunal on May 31 to deal with preliminary issues in the Afrisec matter.

“It was not meant to run as a full-blown hearing,” he said. Harper’s second appearance was on June 19, when they applied for the charges to be dismissed.

“We asked that the charges be dismissed on the basis that the delay in instituting the disciplinary action against him was excessive, inexcusable and that he would be prejudiced should he now be expected to defend himself against allegations that happened more than three years ago,” Howard said.

“We have not heard a word from them [the municipality] since June 30.”

City manager Johan Mettler said the city was looking to resolve the matter as soon as possible.

“The disciplinary case is proceeding and the parties are presently dealing with interlocutory issues.”

Asked what the delay was, Mettler said: “There is no delay.

“The municipality is obliged to, and has, followed the peremptory procedures contained in the legislative framework regulating the matter.

“Self-evidently, the CFO’s disciplinary hearing must be distinguished from that of a lower- ranking official, particularly with regard to procedural obligations placed upon the municipality by the aforementioned legislation.”

Mettler said a date for the next hearing had not been confirmed.

In June, The Herald reported that opposition parties in council had called for Harper’s suspension to be lifted.

The UDM’s Mongameli Bobani said the party’s opposition to his suspension remained the same now.

“We don’t know what is happening with the matter related to Afrisec but on the initial charges they found nothing, so why is this person still at home?” he said.

“All these people who are sitting at home for more than three months must come back and work because this is fruitless expenditure, their cases must be solved while they are at work.”

Bobani said the city was failing at finalising disciplinary matters in due time.

“The only people benefiting here are the lawyers,” he said.

The EFF’s Zilindile Vena said: “With all these suspensions at the municipality, people are still getting paid while they are sitting at home.

“Any internal process can’t take more than a year.

“To us, it looks as though these are political squabbles of the administration at the expense of the taxpayer.”

Vena said it made no sense that the city was paying two people for one job, with one of them sitting at home.

“This is money that could go to service delivery and other things,” Vena said.

“We are losing money paying these people and we are losing money paying legal fees.

“There is no justification for these delays.”