investigation
Scotch Tagwireyi
Charges of corruption and fraud involving millions of rands in drafting of tenders and awarding of contracts for road-marking have been laid against the Gauteng and KwaZulu-Natal provincial administrations.
Although the Directorate of Serious Economic Offences completed its investigations and submitted a report in August 1997 with recommendations that “certain prosecutions should be instituted”, the directors of public prosecutions have not yet made a decision.
The delay in prosecution is causing much discontent among companies that are failing to secure contracts on road maintenance and have been complaining about corruption and fraud in the provinces’ road departments since 1989.
“These people must be stopped, they have been doing this for a long time. Nothing has changed even though there is a new government: those people are from the old regime still occupying those offices playing same dirty tricks. It appears as though there is someone up there who makes sure that this issue is not dealt with,” says Ton Keen, manager of Teemark Roadmarking based in KwaZulu-Natal.
Another owner of a road-marking company in Johannesburg, who doesn’t want to be identified because he is co-operating with the police on the fraud investigation, says he has been battling to secure a prosecution since 1990.
“I made a report to the Department of Trade and Industry about the dumping of road maintenance material in 1990 and it took them two-and-a-half years to produce a report that confirmed my allegations. It then went to the auditor general for two years and to the DirectorateEof Serious Economic Offences which also took three years to investigate.”
Since 1989, contracts were allegedly only awarded to two companies to maintain the 88 000km of road surfaces in KwaZulu-Natal. The companies that got the contracts are SA Industrial Painters, which was liquidated in 1993 after investigations started, and Lynkor (Pty) Ltd which still operates in many areas throughout Southern Africa.
Companies allegedly bid for tenders at very low prices, which were then raised substantially once the tender was awarded.
Tender records show that white paint was R852, 25 and yellow paint was R932,80 per 200 litres on April 1, but within a month the price of white paint had risen to R1 193,94 and yellow paint to R1 589, 26.
“This is not possible,” says Keen. “Even if there is an allowance for escalation it cannot be double the price.” She adds that it’s also not normal for two companies to have the same prices for products.
Director of investigations for the Directorate of Serious Economic Offences Jan Swanepoel said allegation regarding corruption and fraud in the drafting of tenders and awarding of contracts were made against the provincial administrations, Lynkor and SA Industrial Painters.
Swanepoel said his office produced a 60- page report which it submitted to the Gauteng Office of Public Prosecutions. However, he could not tell whether there will be prosecutions or not.
Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions in Gauteng, advocate Byron Bredenkamp, says his office has not yet looked at the report. “The person who was working on the case resigned and I am still looking for someone to take over.”
The Office of Public Prosecutions in KwaZulu-Natal could not comment on the matter because the person dealing with it went on leave with the file.
A Lynkor representative said he was aware that there were such allegations before, but said the charges were dropped.