A company owned by Paul Mojapelo, regional Tshwane ANC secretary, has raked in over R75-million over two years for consulting on behalf of the Tshwane municipality.
Paul & Partners Engineering is among 32 engineering consultants appointed by the City of Tshwane, but Mail & Guardian sources claim the company’s political clout has resulted in it being given work “monthly, without fail”.
Paul & Partners has invoiced the municipality since March 2012 and continued every month, according to financial transactions in the M&G‘s possession. The company started working for the city in 2012, according to a senior municipal official.
“None of the companies have ever benefited that much,” said a highly placed source in the municipality. “By now it could be more than that R75.6-million,” the source said.
The M&G only had sight of invoice and payment transactions until June this year. The lowest amount Paul & Partners claimed was R548?000 in November last year and the highest was R10.6-million in October this year.
Mojapelo said on Thursday that the company was appointed as “just consultants”. He said the city called on them “as and when” their services were needed.
A senior official in the municipality, however, claimed the Âengineering firm receives “preferential treatment”.
“This company is getting guaranteed work on a monthly basis. The ‘as and when’ we need you contract is supposed to be on a rotational basis with other suppliers,” he said.
Favourable treatment
The same senior official said the reason Paul & Partners was enjoying favourable treatment from the city is that Mojapelo was involved in deploying officials to the municipality.
The decision to allocate work to Paul & Partners is also apparently taken outside of the committees tasked with employing suppliers – blocking competition in the process – said two M&G sources in the municipality.
This means the municipal committees are denied the opportunity to consider cheaper suppliers.
The M&G‘s source said Paul & Partners is paid swiftly – within a month – while other government suppliers waited months for payment.
Mojapelo told the M&G that information about his company’s dealings with Tshwane was being deliberately leaked to tarnish his image ahead of the region’s elective congress. The ANC in Tshwane is scheduled to elect new leadership this coming week.
He also disputed the R75.6-million figure documented on the municipality’s transactions. “No ways,” he said. He could not, however, provide the correct figure.
“I don’t know how much it was, but I’m sure that’s not the case [R75.6-million]. I would be on holiday now if I was paid that much,” he said.
Political influence
He also denied that he used his political power in the region to influence those deployed by the ANC in the municipality to favour his company.
“Not at all. I have gone through proper channels. What happens inside I don’t know, I cannot respond to that,” he said.
“They [the municipality] pick and choose whoever they want to give the job to. How do I get involved there because there are committees that deal with that?
Mojapelo said his company has the necessary project management experience. It was established in 2003 and he has carried out this type of work for 20 years with different municipalities, he said.
“I have managed the Maputo Corridor and I have done work for [the] public works department.”
He argued that Paul & Partners won the consultancy tender fairly.
“The project management tender was advertised, I tendered and I was evaluated.”
Mojapelo also could not remember if his company had been appointed by Tshwane before or after he was elected ANC regional secretary. “I don’t remember when I was appointed,” he told the M&G this week. “But the tender was advertised around 2011.” Mojapelo was elected Tshwane regional secretary in 2011.
Regional leadership
When asked about his relationship with city manager Jason Ngobeni, head of supply chain management Tswelopele Maabane and mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa, Mojapelo would only acknowledge that he serves with Ramokgopa in the ANC’s regional leadership. Ramokgopa is the ANC’s Tshwane regional chairperson.
“Go and ask Jason [Ngobeni], I don’t even speak to him. I have not spoken to him this year, not even on the phone.”
Last year Beeld reported that Paul & Partners won a tender in April 2013, worth more than R3.3-million for the construction of the New Parkmore Reservoir in Pretoria East. The newspaper said Paul & Partners clinched this deal even though there were better qualified and cheaper candidates, such as EVN Africa Consulting Services whose bid was R1.1-million. According to Beeld, other companies had also scored higher bid adjudication points.
Paul & Partners were also project managers for the upgrading of roads and storm water systems in Soshanguve’s Block WW.
Mojapelo told the M&G he was still to decide if he should stand for re-election as regional secretary. “I am old, I am over 50.”
Tshwane municipality spokesperson Blessing Manale said the municipality was not at liberty to disclose the amounts invoiced by its service providers, including Paul & Partners “without their permission”.
Manale however said Paul & Partners was appointed “on the panel of approved professional consultants on 03 May 2013 under [tender] CB 379/2011, which has 24 companies. They were appointed as programme managers on 25 June 2013”.
But transactions that the M&G has seen show that the company has been invoicing the municipality since March 2012.
Scope of work
Manale said Paul & Partners’ scope of work entailed “planning work, designs, and implementation. They also render programme management for some of our projects”.
City of Tshwane saw nothing wrong with appointing a company owned by the ANC’s regional secretary to a municipality that is run by his party.
“We believe the SCM [supply chain management] processes followed were fair and transparent, especially as Paul & Partners is a registered vendor in the City,” Manale said.
“There is no rule that prohibits office bearers in political parties from tying [doing] business with government or even the private sector.
“The ANC as a political party has or is in the process of developing its ethics code on the relationship of its members with state business and will be better placed to provide answer of such a practices as [and] when they happen,” said Manale.
Manale added that work allocated on programme management is for “mixed housing projects, which run over multiple years. They [Paul & Partners] claim for work done for each project on a monthly basis”.