A black building contractor from Brits alleges he is facing bankruptcy after refusing to pay a R400 000 backhander to a local council official.
After not answering Mail & Guardian questions for three weeks, council spokesperson KS Ngubegusha this week described the claim as “laughable”.
The contractor, Daniel Modimola, ran a successful construction business, winning contracts that included work on the N4 Platinum highway. When his company, DZ Distributors, landed a contract to supply waterpipes to Brits’s Bapong township, in the North West, the possibility that the work might ruin him did not cross his mind. Now he is “running away from creditors. I can’t pay them, because the municipality won’t give me my money.”
Modimola claimed the council’s technical services manager, Raymond Basetse, would not release funds unless he (Modimola) paid a bribe of 10% of the money owed. When he refused, payments dried up.
After receiving the M&G’s questions, he said the municipality coughed up some of the money it owed him. Municipal manager Tebogo Ntlatleng also requested a meeting with him, after the council had allegedly ignored him for months.
In 2002 Modimola tendered for a water reticulation contract in Bapong worth R24-million. The council later split the contract, with DZ Distributors and another contractor, Pilane Civils, jointly receiving R5,7-million.
When Pilane withdrew on the grounds that the contract price was unfeasibly low, Modimola said the council pleaded with him to do the work alone and promised additional funds.
He said he was told the fees would be reviewed as the project progressed. In addition, he alleged, Basetse demanded a fee for freeing up additional funding. Nothing was put in writing.
“Raymond said we’d get the money if we paid him R400 000,” said Modimola. “We soon realised we were stretched to our limit and we could not afford ‘additional fees’.”
According to Modimola, Basetse signs contractors’ cheques in Madibeng. “He can make a contractor’s life very difficult. If he doesn’t like you, he can delay signing, or not sign at all.”
When Modimola refused to pay the bribe, he said he was “downgraded to Basetse’s blacklist”. Payments to DZ Distributors then became more infrequent and the fees were never reviewed, as initially promised.
“Because of this, we could not complete our work. We couldn’t pay our creditors or workers,” Modimola said. Ultimately, the firm only completed 23% of the work before withdrawing.
Said Modimola: “We went to see the municipal manager, Ntlatleng, who met us and Basetse. When we made the bribe allegations against Basetse in the meeting he got so mad that he almost hit me.”
Ntlatleng told Modimola to withdraw from the project and said he would ensure DZ Distributors was paid for the work it had done. But nothing has come of the promise.
Council spokesperson Ngubegusha said Basetse “had no free hand to simply obtain further funds without advancing acceptable and valid reasons for an increase in funds”. It was, therefore, “laughable” to suggest he had promised DZ Distributors additional funds in exchange for a R400 000 bribe.
Ngubegusha said Modimola had not mentioned “this so-called bribe” at a meeting with the municipal manager two weeks ago.