A former Transnet official is facing prosecution after he allegedly accepted bribes worth more than R1-million from a company that was part of a Siemens-led consortium which won a major contract from the parastatal.
Anver Hendricks, former national maintenance and support manager for the National Port Authority, a division of Transnet, has been formally charged with corruption in the Cape Town Regional Court for accepting bribes from the parastatal’s suppliers.
He appeared in court in March but was not asked to plead. Keith Gess, Hendricks’s lawyer, says his client’s trial has been delayed because police were planning to make more arrests related to the case. Gess says Hendricks is waiting for a final charge sheet.
Hendricks left the port authority last July after a disciplinary inquiry into the allegations against him. His departure was followed by that of a close colleague.
Donald Kau, spokesperson for the port authority, declined to comment, saying it was an “internal matter”.
Transnet spokesperson Tami Didiza says the transport giant was aware of Hendricks’s case. Didiza confirmed that Hendricks was hauled before a disciplinary inquiry last year. Transnet, Didiza says, “took the matter further with law enforcement agencies”.
The Mail & Guardian is in possession of a port authority charge sheet against Hendricks. He was charged with, among other things, soliciting more than R1-million between 1998 and 1999 from black empowerment IT company Southern Focus.
In 2001 Southern Focus was a partner in a consortium, put together by Siemens Business Services (SBS), that won a contract to install SAP, a major computer software system, for the port authority.
Southern Focus’s relationship with SBS, which is a division of German-owned Siemens Southern Africa, goes back to 2000.
The port authority decided to install the SAP system in 1999 to operate its financial system. The M&G understands the SAP system deal cost the parastatal well over R40-million but was not put on open tender. The Siemens-led consortium that won the deal included a Deloitte subsidiary.
Southern Focus, now defunct, was majority owned by Martin Cele, a prominent Durban businessman.
Cele, according to the port authority charge sheet against Hendricks, orchestrated the payment of bribes to Hendricks via intermediaries. Cele could not be reached for comment this week. His company was reportedly liquidated last May. At the time nothing was said of the alleged bribes or the company’s relationship with SBS.
The relationship between Siemens and Southern Focus is revealed in documents obtained by the M&G.
So how did Siemens, a multi-national concern worth billions of rands, meet up with a company implicated in bribery?
Robert Gögele, SBS CEO, says: “When the National Port Authority mentioned that Southern Focus had been involved with the National Port Authority in previous projects and had done good work we engaged with them to see if they could add value.”
Southern Focus, Gögele says, “was known to SBS from another project in 2000 where [we] were looking to include BEE [black economic empowerment] companies and Southern Focus was specifically strong in the data warehousing and database space”.
So what did Southern Focus offer in the ports authority SAP deal? The M&G is in possession of an interim sub-contractor agreement between Southern Focus and Siemens signed in 2001. The M&G also has an unsigned copy of the collaboration agreement of the consortium.
Both documents are silent about the exact role of Southern Focus in the consortium and in the implementation of the port authority deal. It is not clear why Southern Focus had no defined role.
Asked about the exact role of Southern Focus in the consortium as stipulated in the joint venture agreement, Gögele responded by saying: “The provision of SAP resources into the SBS-led team included Deloitte, Translogic and Khulisa.”
The M&G also asked Gögele if Southern Focus contributed in any way to the implementation of the deal. “They [Southern Focus] provided SAP-related skills on a number of SAP modules,” Gögele said.
Does Siemens regard itself as having a liability either perceptually or financially because of Southern Focus’s alleged behaviour?
No, Gögele says. “We believe that we have no liability at all and that the investigation has nothing to do with our project but is actually related to payments made prior to our project even starting.”
Gögele maintains his company has been co-operating with the port authority and has given the Transnet division “any information they requested”.
The port authority, Gögele says, “has confirmed that SBS is not implicated in any way”.
Asked whether his company knew of Southern Focus’s alleged relationship with Hendricks before acquiring the ports authority project, Gögele said: “No. The National Ports Authority made us aware that an investigation was launched as soon as they removed Hendricks from the project.”
Hendricks was responsible for overseeing the implementation of the SAP system. Port Authority officials say Hendricks, in his capacity as national manager for maintenance and support in the IT division, was involved in the early stages of the
selection process.
Hendricks has denied that he was involved in any way in the selection of the consortium. He says he and his former colleague were “casualties of a broader situation”.
The awarding of the deal to the Siemens-led consortium, Hendricks says, was carried out by the port authority CEO and the Transnet board tender committee.
Hendricks confirmed that the contract was not placed on open tender. A Cape Town-based company plans to sue Transnet over the deal.