The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Thursday called for an inter-departmental forensic investigation into the Tshwane multimillion-rand electricity smart-meter scandal.

“The DA will be writing to [cooperative governance] Minister Pravin Gordhan, and in his previous capacity as finance minister, together with current Minister of Finance, Nhlanhla Nene, to request that they institute an inter-departmental forensic investigation into this matter,” the party’s Tshwane mayoral candidate Solly Msimanga said.

“Further, that they investigate the decision taken by the leadership in the Tshwane municipality to ignore instructions and to enter into a contract with PEU.”

The contract with PEU, to install the smart meters has been terminated, but would see the City of Tshwane having to pay more than R1.3-billion just to get out of the contract, Msimanga said.

“If this R1.3-billion is added to the original service fee or commission of R1-billion, it in effect means that the ratepayers of Tshwane have had to pay, R2.3-billion – the price of nine Nkandla’s – to extricate itself from the contract.”

He added that Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa and city manager, Jason Ngobeni, had ignored a letter from Gordhan when he was finance minister, instructing them not to enter into this contract.

“It is clear that Mayor Ramokgopa and Mr Ngobeni chose to ignore this instruction from a national minister and the department. Further, a national minister and the officials of his department failed to take action in keeping with his oath of office to protect the Constitution despite the fact that he and his department had identified several breaches thereof.”

Only 12 920 meters had been installed for at least one million customers in the city.

Ramokgopa had reportedly requested the Public Protector and the Auditor General to investigate the contract in May.