More fraud allegations against Asap

A concerned bidder has blown the whistle on other tenders awarded to controversial security firm African Strategic Asset Protection (Asap) in the wake of the Mail & Guardian exposé last month.

Mike Smiles, managing director of security technology company Masc Solutions, released correspondence he had directed to the KwaZulu-Natal department of public works both prior to and following the M&G story. There were clear warnings of potential tender rigging and price inflation in government in contracts that Asap won in the province, the correspondence suggests.

In an email to the provincial head of public works, Dr FB Madlopha, Smiles wrote: ‘Due to the efforts of the Mail & Guardian it would seem the Parliament project, which was awarded to Asap under dubious circumstances on the recommendation of the consultants Lewis & De Kroon, has now brought this matter into the public domain.”

The M&G revealed that two key players in the national Parliament project received bene­fits from Asap. Parliamentary security adviser Russel Christopher received a series of payments from Asap after the awarding of a R32,5million security tender and Shane Jacobs, who was supposedly providing independent advice to the department of public works through Lewis & De Kroon, was effectively an Asap employee.

‘The same company was awarded the three projects in KwaZulu-Natal in similar circumstances, which your department elected to ignore despite this fact being brought to your attention,” Smiles wrote.

He had already written to Madlopha in May this year, setting out detailed concerns about the manner in which the KwaZuluNatal tenders had been handled.

In his May letter Smiles, whose company supplies security systems to some of South Africa’s biggest corporations, noted: ‘We were extremely concerned with the proprietary nature of the technical specification, which described and mentioned by trade name a specific product.”

The product in question is the Detec surveillance system, for which Asap is the sole South African agent.

Essentially his concern was that, in specifying a particular product by name, Lewis & De Kroon made it all but impossible for any company other than Asap to win the tender.

Smiles went on: ‘We also questioned what appeared to be a serious over-specification of the central computer equipment as this was excessive for projects of this size. We indicated in our response that we believed considerable cost savings could be achieved using industry standard solutions rather than the proprietary software and hardware specified.”

Smiles claimed he had raised these and other technical queries with Paul von Zwiklitz of Lewis & De Kroon, who were also the consultants in KwaZulu-Natal, but never received a satisfactory response.

Smiles states in his letter: ‘Mr Von Zwiklitz, by his own admission, is not a security expert. However, he indicated during our telephone conversations that he takes advice on electronic security matters from an employee of Asap [name unknown].”

Von Zwiklitz has previously refused to speak to the M&G, but sent a note to Smiles stating: ‘If you believe everything you read in a gutter- raking newspaper then you clearly also believe in the tooth fairy.”

Smiles told the KwaZulu-Natal public works department there were other specifications that raised concerns, notably a requirement for full-time support during the warranty period.

‘The requirement to provide a technician on site full-time for the duration of the warranty period adds a large cost to the project price. If the systems specified utilise international industry standard software and hardware — the need for this requirement would be eliminated and considerable cost savings could be achieved.”

Among the KwaZulu-Natal tenders won by Asap were security systems for the legislature and for the provincial government offices in Pietermaritzburg and Ladysmith.

It is understood that of three companies invited, only Asap bid for the legislature project.

In response to detailed questions about Smiles’s claims, the public works department said it would ‘undertake an investigation”.