Did Moruleng provide funding for Mochudi’s shelter?

Almost five years ago, I wrote two stories in succession about the recently opened leobo project. It was at a foundation level. The articles were basically on the outcome of an audit exercise carried out by the Kgatleng District Council audit team after the committee which had been appointed to supervise construction work had been kicked out. There had been allegations from several quarters to the effect that the committee had misappropriated funds for the project. Although no evidence was presented, allegations leveled against the committee were so strong that many people believed the committee was guilty of wrongdoing. It so happened that I was related to some members by blood and with others by personal friendship. At some stage when allegations of wrongdoing spread throughout the district and possibly the country, I had to inform those that I was related to through friendship, that should audit prove them guilty, I would find it difficult to continue associating with them even if audit had not been tested in a court of law.

The audit was carried out at the request of the district commissioner’s office following an earlier request by Deputy Kgosi Sekai Linchwe to the district commissioner who has since been redeployed outside Kgatleng.. The first article was my initiative. It came after the audit report had been leaked to the media. The second article was by popular demand. Some readers had expressed dismay and disbelief through social media after learning that audit had been carried out and the people they had expected to be the subject of police investigations for alleged misappropriation of funds raised for the construction of the leobo had been exonerated. They were so disgusted that they then turned their frustrations on this writer claiming that the writer could have suppressed certain facts which implicated the committee or some of them. They expressed their frustration on social media. One of them strongly believed that the story they had read, in this newspaper, did not go deeper into the audit report.  She said it was unlikely that the audit could exonerate the committee from wrong doing. They suspected that it had been cooked into making people believe that the funds for the project had not been misappropriated.  “Ba le mo tlwaetseng tlheng bathong mo kopeng go re a kwaleng se sengwe se se botokanyana”, said another in a face book message. Very strong views were expressed by those who suspected the first story could have been doctored to appear to favour the committee.

In their view, the committee stood no chance of escaping from the audit. As a writer, I appreciated the concerns of those readers. I then decided to satisfy them by agreeing to write another article because indeed one story from a bulky document  like that would perhaps do an injustice to readers who were thirsty for justice. So I obliged. The second article was more detailed emphasizing that audit had confirmed that all the funds which had been raised by the committee through all forms of activities had been properly utilized and that donations which were in kind, had been collected and were verified. Audit was however, concerned that the materials which had been collected from donors were placed in such a way that they could be stolen because they were in an unsafe place. When that second story appeared in the newspaper, no further concerns appeared on social media.

There was dead silence. It became clear that the interests of doubting Thomas’s had been served. Audit did not uncover wrongdoing and the cost of the structure which had been constructed before the committee was booted out of the project and replaced by a group of regiment, corresponded with the costs submitted by the committee. If there had been distortions of facts about the report, the district council, district commissioner and Sekai for that matter, would have taken it up with the newspaper. The district council and district commissioner would have done it professionally while Sekai would have used the kgotla system to try to abuse the writer. It is common sense that a lot of people expected the audit report to be presented to the kgotla for public scrutiny. However, that has not happened, resulting with those who had been maligned at the kgotla demanding justice. When the imposing project was opened a month or two ago, little did people know that the dispute about who did what or who did not do what was impending. The thinking was that the official opening closed the chapter on any dispute. As it turned out later, that was not the case. Representative of the old committee still wanted the community to be told that they did not misappropriate funds as had been alleged. The type of justice they demanded was not an expensive one like it would have been if it was through litigation. They wanted the reopening of the debate on the project’s funding by briefing the community about the outcome of audit exercise.