There were irregularities in the tender process to sell a prime tract of Cape Town land, African National Congress (ANC) provincial secretary Mcebisi Skwatsha concedes, but he blames the office of Premier Ebrahim Rasool rather than his own conduct as provincial minister of transport and public works.
The Mail & Guardian
Defence in Slabbert disciplinary hearing
Findings of Slabbert disciplinary hearing
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Subsequently, the record suggests, Skwatsha angrily insisted that the committee recommend concluding the sale to Rowmoor, and officials rewrote the minutes of their meeting, as well as a recommendation to the provincial cabinet, to make it appear that they had never considered redoing the tender.
Skwatsha counters that he was told by the department’s monitoring and evaluation committee some time in 2004 that the land would go to Rowmoor and that Rapiprop had been disqualified for fronting.
”I never told them to award the tender to Rowmoor, I simply told them to implement their original decision in the interests of administrative justice,” he says. ”I am very clear that the original decision was to go to Rowmoor.”
Document
The M&G is in possession of one document that supports that claim; however, as Skwatsha has acknowledged, the monitoring and evaluation committee would not ordinarily decide on the final awarding of tenders.
Skwatsha’s contention that Rapiprop was disqualified for fronting is not supported by the documentary record, which shows only that there were concerns about its true empowerment status.
Skwatsha also insists that delays throughout 2004 in implementing an initial decision in favour of Rowmoor were caused by Rasool’s office.
”In the middle of all this there was a decision to take away property management from me and make the final decision rest in the premier’s office,” he says.
According to Skwatsha’s version, officials had been sent back and forth by Rasool’s office and eventually suggested to him that the tender be repeated because of higher land values. ”I said, ‘We can’t let our administrative bungle punish the bidder. Implement your original decision.”’
Skwatsha insists that none of his interventions amounted to favouring people close to him. ”Almost all the people involved in bidding had ANC connections,” he says, adding that he was puzzled by the intervention of the monitoring and evaluation committee, a body set up by his predecessor, Tasneem Essop, to prevent fronting.
He also insists that he never discussed the tender with anyone from Rowmoor, a claim that is flatly contradicted by one insider at the company, who declined to go on the record because a settlement has now been reached.
Skwatsha says he cannot provide documentary proof of his claims, because the original file was lost by Rasool’s office and he was not able to take documents with him when he resigned as provincial minister in July 2005.
Clarification
Last week we detailed how an intervention by Skwatsha had favoured a group of well-connected business people in Rowmoor Investments.
Nowhere did we claim that Skwatsha had played any role in setting up Rowmoor, but one ambiguously constructed sentence might have created that impression. Any confusion is regretted.