North West Premier Thandi Modise is at the centre of a fight for a R126-million road construction tender that has pitted her against the provincial department of public works, roads and transport. Modise wants the contract cancelled but her critics have questioned her motives.
The tension led Modise to announce on Thursday that she is placing the department’s acting head, Sandile Mbanjwa, on precautionary suspension. Modise said she plans to appoint an independent technical team to evaluate the bid again.
In August the North West government appointed two companies, Down Touch Investments and Jodan Construction, to build a road between Koster and Lichtenburg. Down Touch was contracted for R93.5-million, whereas Jodan was allocated R32.5-million of the contract.
A losing bidder, Globul Roads, has since taken the matter to court, arguing that it should have been awarded the contract because its bid was R18-million cheaper.
But department insiders said there was a risk that Globul Roads would not be able to finish the construction work successfully because of its extremely low bidding price.
A legal representative for Globul, Jorg Frese of Frese, Moll & Partners, told the Mail & Guardian that his client was unhappy because the contract had been awarded to a contractor whose bid had been ranked fourth and whose prices were the highest.
“We’ve got the evaluation report that shows that the contractor was fourth on the list and its bid was rejected by the bid adjudication committee, but it still made it,” said Frese.
Modise said in a statement: “We are doing this to determine whether there is merit in the allegations in the court papers and to satisfy ourselves that due process was followed in the appointment of the contractor awarded the tender for road construction.”
Modise’s acting spokesperson Lesiba Kgwele said the allegations contained in the high court application by Globul were serious and the Premier needed to be sure that the department conducted itself correctly. She was not convinced by explanations from Mbanjwa and other public works senior officials. “It became inevitable that the matter had to undergo investigation since the department still failed to show that they conducted themselves within the confines of procurement prescripts,” he said.
Complying with requests
Three weeks ago the provincial treasury stripped the department of financial management powers, accusing it of not complying with requests from provincial finance minister Louisa Mabe’s office.
A public works employee told the M&G that the sanctions imposed by Mabe meant that the department had been brought to a standstill. “We are totally shut down. We can go to work but we cannot procure anything”.
It is alleged that Modise was behind this decision because of the disputed roads contract. Her critics said she was in favour of Globul because of her friendship with its chief executive, Zacharia Tolo, who was formerly education minister in North West.
Both Tolo and Modise denied they were friends.
The M&G has learned from three senior government officials that Modise summoned Mabe, Mbanjwa and senior officials from his department to her office last week and tried unsuccessfully to convince them to cancel the road contract. She is also said to have expressed reluctance to have her government defend the contract in court.
Kgwele said Modise was not convinced the government could win the case in court. “It is always an unwise move to simply oppose litigation even when it appears the stakes are against you. This does not reflect reluctance to defend the contract but just caution.”
He denied that Modise was behind the decision by provincial Treasury to strip public works of financial management powers.
A legal opinion by senior counsel advocate Henry Lever found that the department had done nothing wrong by awarding the tender to the two winners. Legal advisers for both Modise’s office and the department, as well as Mbanjwa, attended the meeting at which Lever presented his legal opinion.
“It is true that the legal opinion cleared the department of any alleged wrongdoing. There was a position that said the case is defendable in court,” said a public works source.
“The premier said she did not trust that legal opinion,” said a senior provincial government official who did not want to be named.
The other two provincial departments involved in the saga — treasury and public works, roads and transport — referred all questions to Modise’s office.
The court is expected to hear the Globul Roads case next Tuesday.
Modise said the investigation she had ordered would be finalised within a week.