DSD’s failure to follow proper procurement processes deprives thousands of poor learners of school uniforms

Thousands of underprivileged Gauteng learners will yet again be deprived of access to much-needed school uniforms due to the Gauteng Department of Social Development’s (DSD) failure to follow proper procurement processes.

The department was not honest when it claimed in a recent briefing that the Supply Chain Management tender was suspended due to the Constitutional Court Judgement on Preferential Procurement Processes Regulations, 2017.

However, the judgment was suspended for a period of 12 months, valid till 26 January 2023, allowing departments to continue with the procurement of contracts.

For this reason, the National Department of Social Development successfully secured 12 cooperatives to supply 6151 school uniforms in Gauteng through proper tender processes.

Five years in a row, Gauteng DSD has constantly failed to spend the budget for school uniforms and dignity packs because they cannot resolve the specifications and tenders to cooperatives.

In the previous financial year, 636,119 or 30.2% of dignity packs were distributed compared to the target of 2.1 million dignity packs. 1,463,881 learners did not access dignity packs.

151,797 or 65.4% of school uniform packs were distributed compared to a target of 232,098. This means that 80,301 learners were denied access to school uniforms.

Gauteng DSD must stop shifting the blame for its incompetence and do better to spend the department’s budget to serve our poor and struggling communities.

Learners across the province continue to suffer because this department lacks the political will to ensure learners have access to school uniforms and dignity packs.

The DA demands that the Gauteng MEC of Social Development, Mbali Hlophe, must put urgent processes in place to ensure that contracts are awarded to cooperatives for Gauteng learners to be supplied with uniforms come January 2023.

The DA will continue to fight and expose this department’s incompetency to ensure our children’s dignity is restored through the provision of dignity packs and school uniforms.

Gauteng Health wastes R12.7 million as 70 000 litres of sanitiser expires

The Gauteng Health Department has wasted 141 000 half-litre bottles of sanitiser which cost R12.7 million as it has expired and is no longer useable.

This is disclosed by Gauteng Health MEC Nomathemba Mokgethi in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

According to Mokgethi, R100 million was paid for 544 000 units of sanitiser to assist with the Covid-19 epidemic, but only 392 000 units (74%) was used. The remaining 141 000 units which totals 70 000 litres cannot be used as they have expired and are currently being stored at Kushesh Warehouse quarantine area.

Mokgethi says that the sanitiser had a limited product validity period of one year from 31 March 2020 to 31 March 2021. Samples of the sanitiser were submitted to the Quality Assurance department in December 2020 to check the quality, but no feedback has been received to date.

I am concerned that poor quality sanitiser was bought as it should normally be valid for at least three years. Why has the Quality Assurance department still not given a report on this after one year?

Health workers often complain that they are not given sufficient sanitisers, which adds to the risks they face with rampant Covid-19 infections.

Corruption may well be involved as has occurred with much of the PPE procurement.

We need accountability in this matter and penalties for companies that have provided substandard supplies.

71% of government contracts in Ekurhuleni awarded to service providers outside the municipality

The ANC-PA-IRASA Coalition government in Ekurhuleni has exported 71.5% of its total tenders awarded in the first quarter of this financial year to businesses operating outside the municipality.

Total expenditure on procurement of goods and services for the first quarter amounted to R60.7 million, however only R17.3 million of this was spent on local service providers.

In a municipality with a 39% unemployment rate, it is concerning that opportunities for residents of Ekurhuleni are exported to other municipalities or provinces.

I have been to a light industrial business hive in Etwatwa which, at a price tag of R44million, is nothing more than a white elephant as the facility has sat vacant for two years since it opened.

If projects like this were fully operational, residents would be in a better position to upskill themselves, grow their businesses and contribute to the needs of Ekurhuleni while making a living for themselves – ultimately, feeding their families and creating jobs.

I have seen other such hives across the municipality that are in a similar state.

Public funds invested in projects such as these to assist people are nothing but monuments standing testament to the ineptitude of the ANC and its coalition partners in Ekurhuleni.

Ekurhuleni cannot continue its current trajectory.

Residents deserve a government that stimulates an environment conducive to economic growth and job creation, not a government that traps residents in a cycle of poverty and hopelessness.

Under a DA-led Ekurhuleni, centres such as these will be repurposed to ensure that they fulfil the functions they were intended to do. In the DA municipality of George, youth cafes such as these have been used to stimulate economic activity for the youth and upskilling programmes have gone a long way to reducing unemployment in economically depressed areas.

Functioning Hives will ensure that government spending is localised because the requisite skills and functions will be available at a local level – ultimately benefitting the people of Ekurhuleni.

A DA government in Ekurhuleni will get things done to ensure that Ekurhuleni works!

DA to submit complaint against MEC Lesufi to the GPL’s Integrity Commissioner

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng will be submitting a complaint to the Gauteng Provincial Legislature’s (GPL) Integrity Commissioner against MEC for Education, Panyaza Lesufi regarding allegations of corruption around the awarding of tenders to schools that emerged in media reports earlier this week. 

 A voice recording of a meeting between Lesufi and his team in May last year, allegedly exposes the MEC involving himself in the awarding of his department tenders.

The mandate of the Integrity Commissioner is to investigate any possible violations of the GPL’s Code by Members of the Provincial Legislature.  

The Commissioner must investigate what transpired during the concerned meeting and if Lesufi indeed violated the Code.

The Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown has exposed mass corruption in the Gauteng Provincial Government, filled with irregular tenders, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, while the residents continue to suffer economic hardship. 

The DA is calling on individuals to bring forward any information and evidence on MEC Lesufi’s alleged tender interference to the DA so that such information can be presented before the GPL’s Integrity Commissioner. 

Should the Integrity Commissioner find that MEC Lesufi is implicated in these allegations, it will be a clear indication that he is no longer fit to head the Department of Education and that he must face severe consequences for his actions.

 

 

e-Government awards a tender even to a company that is being deregistered

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is shocked to learn that the Gauteng Provincial Government (GPG) has awarded a tender to Finesse World Wide to sanitize documents despite the fact that this company is currently in the process of being deregistered.

According to the 2019 CICP records, this company which is owned by Koketso Pitso was in the process of being deregistered for annual return non-compliance.

In reply to my questions tabled in the Gauteng Provincial Legislature (GPL), the MEC for Finance and e-Government Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko, confirmed that the company was appointed due to the Covid-19 pandemic and because government has an obligation to provide a safe working environment, the employer must ensure that the workplace is free from any risk to the health of its employees as far as it is reasonable and practicable. Furthermore, the department also recorded incidents of Covid-19 infections in its building and therefore documents received from the Document Management Centre (DMC) needed to be sanitized.

The DA has confirmed that this was not the first time that the department struggled with Occupational Health and Safety issues, as this was an audit related matter contained in the department’s 2018/19 Annual Report, and we agree that the department had to act fast to prevent the spread of COVID19 infections. It is however unacceptable that an organisation that clearly does not have all its paperwork in order is awarded a tender by provincial government to the value of R328 457,00. According to the MEC, Finesse World Wide (Pty) Ltd was the only company which responded to the department’s calls for a quotation, and which submitted supporting documents, including a BBBEE and tax certificate or pin, the Central Supplier Database (CSD) report and company registration documents. A memorandum to procure these services as an emergency procurement was approved by the Accounting Officer.

The DA is concerned that the validity of the tax certificate or pin had not been confirmed as the information on the company was merely obtained from the Central Supplier Database (CSD) report. It does not appear as though the latest CICP report was used by the accounting officer, as it seems that the company’s process for deregistration was overlooked.

The DA will be submitting further questions to the MEC for Finance and e-Government to determine if the department was aware that the company was in the process of being deregistered and if they were, then will the accounting officer who awarded the tender be facing any disciplinary action.

R71 million Gauteng security tender linked to Siphiwe Nyanda should also be probed

The new evidence at the Zondo Commission that Transnet gave a R18 million contract to a security company linked to former ANC Cabinet Minister General Siphiwe Nyanda casts new light on a R71 million contract that the Gauteng Department of Public Transport, Roads and Works (GDTRW) gave this company irregularly in October 2007.

According to Bowman Gilfillan director Christopher Todd, the then Transnet CEO Siyabonga Gama cancelled an open tender for security services to make way for General Nyanda Security (GNS) to submit an unsolicited bid and it was given the contract in December 2007. Todd also said that GNS didn’t even exist as “It had no prior track record and it was not registered with the regulatory authority Psira it was only registered the following year and more importantly, it had no employees.”

After I laid a complaint with the Public Protector she investigated and recommended that the Gauteng Premier investigate alleged improper conduct in the award of a R71 million security contract without tender to GNS Risk Advisory Services (renamed Abalozi Security) which was part-owned by Siphiwe Nyanda. This contract was only cancelled on 16 March 2010 by former MEC Bheki Nkosi after a legal review found that prescribed procurement processes were not followed and that other companies could do the service at a much lower rate, but R71 million in total had already been paid to this company.

According to the PP’s report, there was “no evidence” that General Nyanda “was directly involved in securing the contract, although by its own admission, the GDTRW did take into consideration his background in the security sector in the award of some of the contracts.” The report also found that “the circumstances under which the contract was issued is cause for concern, particularly as there seems to be a growing trend in this direction, with attendant risks regarding the quality and cost effectiveness of goods and services procured under these circumstances as well as the impact on fair competition.”

More than three years after the PP’s recommendation, the then Gauteng Premier Nomvula Mokonyane said in March 2014 that President Jacob Zuma had referred the PP’s report to her “a while ago” and she was “quite satisfied” with the pace of the investigation.

It was typical of Mokonyane to pay lip service to corruption investigations and she only responded on the matter because I sent her the PP’s report and asked her a question in the Legislature.

I will request Premier David Makhura to follow up on the tender awarded to GNS and to re-open the investigation if necessary. It is important that there are no cover-ups and there should be consequences for irregularities that waste public money.

R2.5 billion irregular expenditure on Gauteng Health security contracts

The Gauteng Health Department has spent R2.56 billion on irregularly awarded hospital security contracts that were then irregularly extended on a month-to-month basis for four years.

This is revealed by Acting Health MEC Jacob Mamabolo in a written reply to my questions in the Gauteng Legislature.

According to Mamabolo, the contracts of 73 security companies that were appointed in October 2014 for a two-year period were extended month by month to the present day at a total cost of R2.56 billion for the four year extension.

This is all irregular expenditure which happened even though criminal charges were laid against the chairperson of the bid evaluation committee that first awarded the security contracts.

The Auditor-General warned the Department two years ago about the irregular extension of contracts, but nothing was done to fix this.

Hospital security contracts are notorious for corruption and gross overcharging. New contracts should have been awarded long ago, but it probably suited certain interests to keep extending them.

Suspended Health MEC Bandile Masuku cannot escape accountability for allowing these contracts to continue at great cost.

We need better security at a more reasonable cost in view of recent disturbing security incidents at hospitals in Gauteng.

Waste removal in Tshwane has stopped and ANC administrators now want to rush a multi-million Rand tender

The ANC administrators’ failure to ensure that the city’s fleet is capacitated has seen waste removal in the city cease. In correspondence sent out to service providers the city’s waste management division has indicated that waste removal trucks procured through the CSS46 tender must cease operations.

Mpho Nawa the head ANC administrator is misleading the residents of this city. In a statement to the Rekord he indicated that the CSS46 tender had been extended for a month to allow for the new tender processes. This is a lie, if it had been extended then waste would be collected and not pile up in the streets.

This came after the DA exposed how the tender for the lease of waste removal trucks and other specialist vehicles and equipment would terminate on 31 August.

The new tender that was advertised to replace it closed on 7 July yet the ANC administrators in the city have failed to ensure that it was awarded.

Now they have instead opted to try and rush through a new tendering process. This is abhorrent and reckless act which could see the ANC administrators committing the city into unaffordable contracts as they desperately try and rectify their incompetence while waste piles up in the streets.

Mpho Nawa the head administrator has indicated that he expects the new tender to be awarded in three weeks. This is outrageous, the original tender for this work closed on 9 July and received over 700 bids. What have Nawa and his team of administrators been doing since then?

In a recent statement Nawa indicates the tender had to be re-advertised three times due to a “number of challenges with bid specifications”. This is the height of incompetence as residents must now watch waste piling up in the streets.

The DA has learnt that various service providers in the city have been notified that they have till the close of business today to submit bids on providing services to the city.

This is incredibly concerning as the ANC administrators are clearly scrambling to try and save face and will quite possibly compromise the city’s supply chain processes in order to facilitate new contracts.

The DA is watching this space carefully, once the unlawful ANC administrators are removed from office we intend to investigate all such contracts. Any officials or administrators who are involved in backdoor deals will face severe consequences.

The end of CSS46 tender provided a unique opportunity for the city to evaluate its fleet requirements, assess which vehicles should still be lease and which the city should purchase.

These are decisions which will incur costs that range into the hundreds of millions, they cannot and should not be rushed.

DA calls on Gauteng Provincial Government to make its PPE tenders public 

The Democratic Alliance (DA) in Gauteng is calling on the Gauteng Provincial Government to publish its Procurement Disclosure Report that details all Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) procurement and expenditure in the province as a matter of urgency.

The DA is making this call following the recent PPE scandal where it came to light that a tender to provide PPE to the Gauteng Health Department was awarded to a company owned by the husband of the spokesperson to President Cyril Ramaphosa.

This will enable the public to know exactly who was awarded a tender to provide PPE to the Gauteng Provincial Government, which will allow for full transparency of the procurement process.

Furthermore, it will also ensure that there is strict adherence to the Supply Chain Management processes that every government department should be adhering to.

Where we govern in the Western Cape we have implemented pro-active support and compliance measures to mitigate procurement risks, which include the establishment of a Central Procurement Advisory Committee to support and advise the main procurement departments and enhanced surveillance of disaster-related procurement by internal audits of procurement transactions.

If the MEC for Finance and e-Government, Nomantu Nkomo-Ralehoko is serious about ensuring that the tender process is transparent, then she will ensure that the Gauteng Provincial Government publishes its Procurement Disclosure Report immediately.

Cancellation of R1.5 billion in tenders impacts negatively on road development and jobs

The Gauteng Department of Roads and Transport had to cancel eight of the 16 tenders it planned for the 2018/2019 financial year, while the road infrastructure continues to deteriorate.

This information was revealed in the department’s annual report for the 2018/2019 financial year.

According to the annual report the following tenders were cancelled:

Tender Number Description Estimated Value
DRT 09/06/2016 Grass cutting, tree felling and litter picking for a period of three years: Five regions in Gauteng Province R201 000 000
DRT 18/10/2016 Construction of road P1-1 (R82) (57) phase 3 from D1073 (Walkerville) to K164 (De Deur) approximately 11.3KM) and road K164 between road D904 and road 905 (Approximately 4.1KM) R800 000 000
DRT 119/02/2017 Constructing of new K73 (1.381) between K58 (Allandale Road) and K71 (Woodmead Drive), upgrading of sections of K58 (2.784KM) and K7 (0.962KM) and rehabilitation of K58 (0.65KM) and rehabilitation of K58 (0.65KM) between Maple drive and K71 R191 000 000
DRT 43/11/2017 The visual assessment of roads, bridges, major culverts and pavement surveillance measurements R30 000 000
DRT 34A/08/2017 Public Transport Operations Grant- 8 bus subsidy contracts R93 000 000
DRT 39/07/2017 Professional Engineering Services for the Preliminary Design Review & Detail Design of PW15 from R21 to N3, approximately 35.4KM & supervision for N3 to N17, approximately 15.5 KM (Phase 1) R6 000 000
DRT 18/07/2017 Construction phase: K175 (R568): Rehabilitation of road K175 (R568) (Tshwane) 12 months R55 000 000
DRT 116/02/2017 Rehabilitation of road P122/1 (R57) from km8.4 to P36/1 (R10) (Solomon Mahlangu Drive) approximately 9.3KM R180 000 000

The cancellation of these tenders has a negative impact on mobility as it contributes to increasing traffic congestion and ultimately gridlock.

The R1.5 billion should have been spent on construction and the maintenance of road infrastructure could have contributed in offering job opportunities to the unemployed as well as boosting the Gauteng economy.

This clearly indicates a lack of consequence management within the supply chain unit of this department.

It is high time that the department implements stringent measures to discipline officials and companies implicated where the tenders have been cancelled.

The DA will table questions in the Gauteng Legislature to the MEC for Roads and Transport, Jacob Mamalobo to determine what consequence management system is in place and whether these tenders will be re-advertised.