(MENAFN- the post)
the Ministry of public works and transport is under investigation for allegedly paying m8.4 million to a company that was awarded a lucrative tender under dubious circumstances.
public works principal secretary, tšepang koele, told a press conference yesterday that the investigators are from the police, directorate on corruption and economic offences (dceo), and the finance ministry's fraud department.
koele said the investigation is meant to find out if there are any illegalities in the contract between the ministry and a south african company, lesedi technical engineering consultancy services (lte).
the company inked the deal with the ministry in 2021 to renovate moshoeshoe i international airport for an initial amount of m33 million.
“among others, this company was supposed to do infrastructure condition assessment and construction supervision,” koele said.
the contract was signed after selective tendering.
the investigation started after the ministry paid the company m8.4 million in march this year as part of the m33 million payment.
the company was given the job despite an uproar by some local consultancy companies that lte had been liquidated or was under liquidation in south africa.
public works minister matjato moteane has however rejected allegations that he rushed to pay lte because he had ties with the company.
the company was a tenant at a building owned by sekhametsi consortium in which moteane is a shareholder and it was believed that its payment would make it pay the landlord over m400 000 it owed in monthly rentals.
rebuffing the charge, moteane said he only has 2.3 percent shares at sekhametsi and he would not risk his ministerial job for such little money.
“how stupid would i be to risk my job for about m9 000 that would be my share of the m400 000 said to be owed?” he asked.
moteane said it should be known that he left the management of the sekhametsi consortium after joining politics.
“the lte has since been evicted from the building for owing rent,” he said.
“we are hoping that the investigations will unearth the truth.”
moteane said they will“not allow the investigations to block proceedings of the renovation of the airport”.
moteane said he was sceptical about the agreement with lte when he got into office.
he said he was suspicious because of the allegations that the procurement process was flawed.
“there was also an allegation that the proceeds of the contract were politically motivated,” he said.
he also said there was another allegation that the company was financing some of the political parties in the country.
again, the scope of the job to be done was also changed, he said.
moteane said initially the project was budgeted for about m800 million.
however, there was only m51 million that had been set aside for the project.
then out of the available budget, the lte sought just m33 million to accomplish the job.
“the m51 million was for planning, design and construction,” he said, adding that they could not pay m33 million for the planning alone.
despite his doubts, moteane said they had to carry on with the contract as pulling out would have serious legal implications.
he said his ministry has now engaged the african legal support facility within the african development bank (adb) to take all the projects and analyse if they are important or need to be terminated.
“this contract was indeed flawed,” he said.
for a contract to be done right it needs to be designed properly and the procurement should also be correctly done.
deputy principal secretary of the ministry of public works, katiso ntoane, admitted that they paid the company in march this year after it provided the reports as agreed.
before the contract was sealed, ntoane said, the company wrote to his ministry notifying them that they had changed the name from lte consulting to lesedi technical engineering consultants.
he said their tender panel awarded the
nkheli liphoto