Note to anyone who might have considered taking on Solly Msimanga… don’t. This is a lesson some ANC councillors — who used to run Tshwane — will be learning the hard way.

Some councillors from the ANC dared Msimanga to charge them, after he walked into the council chambers with files he claimed had proof of the ANC’s deep-rooted corruption throughout its time in office in Tshwane.

Msimanga did just that and on Wednesday the new mayor laid charges against three high-ranking ANC officials from the Ramokgopa branch at the Brooklyn police station.

The charges are in connection to what Msimanga called “Nkandla 2.0,” the R90 million upgrade of the Pretoria City Hall that has achieved very little; as well as upgrades to the mayoral residence. The information came as part of a forensic audit of the city’s finances.

IOL reports that the two projects in question total R190 million in wasteful expenditure and all three individuals charged were directly involved as members of the previous local government.

“The forensic investigation that was conducted revealed that money had been syphoned to revamp the city hall and also the mayor’s official residence. More than R190m was syphoned. We are saying the money needs to be accounted for, and we need to make sure that the culprits are brought to book,” Msimanga told reporters.

Besides the people involved, three companies were also contracted to complete the projects.

“The suspects are known, but we don’t want the people to be prosecuted in the media. The forensic investigations make specific references to individuals who were directors of these companies. The companies have since become involved in projects in other municipalities in the country.”

“On the initial report, there are six people; three of them are key to this report and they were the decision-makers responsible for signing off the project. It also looks at three entities that were involved.”

According to the mayor the report had been running for about 11 months, which means the previous administration had knowledge of the alleged corruption but did nothing about it.

“The forensic investigation took a year – from the beginning of last year to November – but what is telling is that after the forensic investigation was completed and submitted, nobody took action from the city’s side. They failed to act on the recommendations in the report.”

“Therefore, that raises further questions that will be investigated as to how deep is the rot; we will clean the rot.”