Disciplinary board targets 23 metro officials in R71m pool fiasco

The Buffalo City Metro’s disciplinary board has recommended that action be taken against at least 23 current and former city officials in connection with the failed multimillion-rand Mdantsane swimming pool precinct. They are suspected of possible involvement in corrupt activities and financial misconduct relating to the pool project. The board believes disciplinary hearings could also lead to criminal cases being opened.

Disciplinary board chair Louis Vermaak recommended action after scrutinising a council-sanctioned EY forensic investigators’ report, which found that the implicated senior officials had aprima faciecase to answer. The pool precinct remains dysfunctional more than three decades after its closure. The Vermaak report said four other metro officials should be taken to task for failing to declare a conflict of interest with some of the companies that benefited from the failed R71m project.

Vermaak also recommended that the council conduct “further investigations to determine who the accounting officer, chief financial officer, general manager of financial reporting, and other financial management officials were at the time of the irregularities”. As the project took place between 2012 and 2024, different city officials occupied positions, a scenario Vermaak told the council his committee did not probe. Just more than R22m was initially budgeted for the pool project, but costs dramatically escalated, with EY forensic investigators revealing that BCM had since pumped R56.9m into the project. Late in 2025, the council approved an additional R14.5m for completion of the project, which takes the total cost to more than R71m.