Pretoria - The DA-led Tshwane coalition government has been slammed for letting political office-bearers go scot-free for their alleged role in the awarding of the first phase of a R2 billion tender for refurbishing the Rooiwal wastewater treatment plant.
This was after the Phase 1 tendering process was flagged in a forensic report tabled in council on Tuesday.
For years complaints have been raised that the plant’s lack of capacity to purify wastewater resulted in the sludge being discharged into the Apies River, which eventually affected water consumed by Hammanskraal residents.
The report, which came under consideration from councillors during an in-committee session, fingered officials for flouting the supply chain management regulations in awarding the tender.
While coalition partners voted in favour of the report, the EFF and ANC criticised its tabling despite the fact that it was incomplete.
According to the ANC, the investigators admitted they had not interviewed all role-players in the tender awarding process.
ActionSA’s council chief whip, Kgosietsile Kgosiemang, said his party supported the report despite its reservations that it singled out officials to face the music and left out political office-bearers. He called for “consequence management” not to be limited to officials but extended to political office-bearers as well.
He said ActionSA saw the report as a “victory” after it sharply raised the issue related to tender irregularities linked to Rooiwal.
“Hammanskraal never had clean drinking water and we are the first to bring up the issue that people must have clean drinking water,” he said.
Despite the City cutting ties with the service provider, the Blackhead company, in August, the report recommended the termination of the contract.
The company, according to ActionSA, was part of a consortium owned by businessman Edwin Sodi.
The party had previously raised concerns over the contract, questioning why it was awarded to a joint venture linked to Sodi, which had no experience in this type of infrastructure project.
In August the City said it terminated a contract of the joint venture of CMS Water Projects and NJR Projects, which was appointed for a Phase 1 construction in October 2019 at a value of R253 million. The contractor was fired for non-performance.
The report tasked the City manager to subject all implicated officials to disciplinary processes with a view to their accounting for tender irregularities.
Kgosiemang said the party asked for the investigation to include councillors.
ANC caucus leader France Boshielo said the report was incomplete, and the investigators also admitted that they had not interviewed all parties involved in the issuing of the tender.
Boshielo said the report only flagged the conduct of people who participated in the bid evaluation committee and not their colleagues in the bid adjudication committee.
“If the bid adjudication committee feels like the bid evaluation committee did something wrong, it is their duty to refer the process back to the other committee,” he said.
He said the ANC wouldn’t “celebrate the persecution of black professionals”.
“We recommended that the role of the executives in the tender must be investigated. We rejected the summary of the report,” he said.
Tshwane EFF leader Obakeng Ramabodu said the party rejected the report because it only spoke against certain individuals for not following the procedure for tender appointment.
“They chose to look at one committee, which we think was the target coming from the side of the administration. The EFF rejected the report because we think that there are politicians that need to be investigated and the then city manager at the time the tender was approved,” Ramabodu said.
Yesterday, mayor Randall Williams said the report was commissioned by his office after several issues were raised with regard to operations and the tendering process pertaining to the plant.
He said in terms of the report, the city manager ought to ensure “the contract itself needs to be cancelled and another (thing) is that the officials involved in the tendering process need to be disciplined for some of the irregularities that were identified during this process”.
“However, the City already cancelled the contract with the joint venture a few months back. This was because we identified significant performance issues with regard to the completion of Phase 1. The joint venture had gone as far as 70% completion,” Williams said.
He said the contract cancellation amount was R30m, “but we will attempt to pursue even more than this due to the way the disruptions in the project occurred”.
“The investigative report also indicates that officials involved in the initial tendering process that took place in October 2019, before my time as executive mayor, be disciplined for their actions in awarding this tender to the joint venture without conducting proper due diligence,” he said.
Pretoria News