[image: City Press/X]

The noise around a prefabricated call centre dubbed “the most expensive mkhukhu” (shack) in South Africa, is growing after allegations of organised crime, corruption, and cover-ups at the municipality.

The renewed scrutiny comes after an official for the Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District Municipality reportedly asked forensic investigators looking into the dodgy R38-million ‘call centre’ contract to change the findings of their reports.

Details of the overpriced call centre shack erected in Vryburg first emerged in November 2023 when several sources at the municipality complained about tender irregularities. Since then, two different law firms have probed the dodgy tender, with both finding the entire process reeks of organised crime, corruption, and cover-ups.

A report written by Motshabi Attorneys especially looked into the joint venture chosen to set up a prefabricated contact centre. They claimed that an extravagant amount of money was spent on a small prefabricated facility, despite the fact that an operational call centre was located on the same grounds.

There were also suspicions that a high-ranking municipality official was linked to the owner of one of the joint venture businesses involved in the project.

The attorneys’ findings appear to have verified this, indicating that the tender anomalies included a well-known and well-connected local family.

@coolstorybru_ A municipality in South Africa spent R38 MILLION on this tiny shack call centre 😫🤦🏻‍♂️🤣🇿🇦 #southafrica #tiktoksouthafrica🇿🇦 #tiktoksouthafrica ♬ original sound – Cool Story Bru! 🇿🇦

On top of the R38.7 million, the cabal also reportedly billed R1.4 million in monthly fees for the equipment needed to run the call centre. The breakdown of costs to set up the super shack includes:

• R258,974 for eight Lenovo desktops;
• R524,435 for car radios in the emergency vehicles;
• R324,566 for handheld walkie-talkies;
• R3,758 for eight mice;
• R6,800 for eight keyboards;
• R36,952 for eight “Logic Pro” headphones;
• R16,253 for one Huawei Router; and
• R24,910 for fibre and Internet

City Press managed to inspect the inside of the shack/call centre, finding that the Lenovo desktops appeared to be a decade-old all-in-one computer called the ThinkCentre M71z.

The tech bros at MyBroadband went searching for this model and found it’s not even on the market anymore, with the closest comparison priced at R5,995. Slightly more than the R32,000 per desktop charged.

Municipal manager Itumeleng Jonas however alleged that when the municipality checked the market price of the machine, it was R15,000 to R25,000. Sure.

Now almost a year after the probe, even the forensic investigators looking into the shack are complaining that they are also not being paid. One of the firms is also alleging that Jonas has been hiding the report, telling the council that it had not been submitted yet. Despite this, Jonas allegedly also asked them to change the findings and recommendations of their final report so those implicated in corruption were instead exonerated.

Their refusal to alter the findings of the report seemingly led to Jonas in turn refusing to pay their bill.

Municipal spokesperson Joseph Motlhasedi told City Press that the municipality would defend the allegations, and denied that Jonas had tried to influence the investigation or mislead the council, saying the forensic reports contained ‘inconsistencies’.

[source:mybroadband]