Skip to main content

Banning Fraudulent Contractors (06-2011)



I must confess that I was not excited when Pravin Gordhan revealed ways of fighting tender corruption.  In fact, I did not even pay attention to the TV news when this was shown.  This is because I have heard of initiatives to curb corruption but it somehow seems to rocket. What is worse is that one gets a feeling that culprits don’t pay for the wrong they do.  They move on and get rewarded with more opportunities for corruption.

There are examples of this lack of accountability.  We’ve heard for a while now that the Minister of Housing, Tokyo Sexwale, is busy demolishing RDP houses that were shoddily built.   This is a good project that assists in bringing the dignity of our people back because they should not continue to live in such houses under a democratically elected government.  Better built houses must be given to them.  What bothered me about this campaign is that I did not hear what will be happening to those contractors that failed the state and the people.   We further hear reports to Parliamentary committees of huge numbers of State employees who are getting tenders from government.  These get identified and we do not hear much about reprisal for that.

I felt that I had ample reason not to expect much from noises about curbing corruption.  This changed a couple of days ago when I saw media reports that relate to a list issued by Treasury on individuals and companied that are banned from doing business with government because of their conduct when previously contracted.  The “database of restricted suppliers”  revived my interest and made me go back to read the ‘National Treasury Instruction Note on Enhancing Compliance Monitoring and Improving Transparency and Accountability in Supply Chain Management” of Minister Gordhan.  It has a long title and hence I will just refer to it as the “Instruction note”.  In this note National Treasury requires that all tenders that are that are above R500000 must be reported to them by April and by August of each year. This is meant to stop departments from deciding on issuing tenders at anytime that they feel a need to help somebody “eat”.

Tenders that are above R10 million will have to be approved by Treasury and their bidding process will have to be audited.   A further requirement is for bidding companies’ directors, shareholders, trustees and key officials’ personal details to be published on government departments. This is meant to help departments in verifying whether any of these people are employed by the state, and whether they had previously messed up whilst working on government tenders.

A list was published of all those who were restricted or banned for doing business with government.  This was a huge step as the list contained businesses linked to a number of important people.  This ranged from businessman Tom Boya and the ruling Party’s Western Cape Secretary, Songezo Mjongile, who is affected by the bans because of a company named Linda Medical Supplies, of which he is listed as a Director. Mjongile explains that the Company belonged to his ex wife who is the one who defaulted.    Regardless of the outcome of Mjongile’s appeal, this is not good news for the ANC in the Western Cape as it faces a serious task of re-marketing itself to a province that has voted overwhelmingly against it.
  
What is exciting for me is that something appears to be happening to hold people accountable.  Many people who have defrauded government know nothing about doing business outside of government.  Listing and banning those who do shoddy work and fail to deliver to acceptable standards will ensure that “tenderpreuners” will take the public serious.  I am also not naïve as to believe that people will not try to beat the system. What is needed is strict monitoring and enforcement of these rules in conjunction with other initiatives.   I am now convinced that we are indeed being serious about stopping tender fraud regardless of who is involved. We also need the public to play their role and  for many of us to stop viewing complaints against corruption as being plots of conservatives who hates the Democratic government.   Minister Gordhan you’ve got my attention!!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Paarl Uprising 1962

Growing up in Mbekweni I got used to being associated with the Pan Africanist Congress (PAC/Poqo) when visiting other townships. This is because Paarl has been viewed as a PAC stronghold since the 1962 Paarl uprising that was led by that organisation. The history of the PAC struggles can not be told without mentioning Paarl 1962. That was when a mass uprising consisting of hundreds of men took place. They marched in the morning of November 22 from Mbekweni and Langabuya to town with the intent of attacking the police station and prison. The Late Minister of Justice in the ANC led government Dullar Omar recalled this event when accepting an award for Human Rights in 2004. Omar who, in 1963, was one of the lawyers who were to defend the men recalled that: “ The PAC was particularly active in Paarl. Suddenly hardly without any notice the so-called Paarl riots (the Poqo uprising) exploded on the South African scene. These poor migrant workers had had enough. They marched through...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Importance of Tolerance (June 2009)

Tolerance is a very important concept. It is based on actually respecting what others hold dear. This is what I have learnt growing up within organizations that valued diversity in all its forms. Strategic mobilization in Mbekweni meant understanding that there are many people who go to church and thus a conscious attempt at all times to bring them into the Mass democratic movement fold and not alienate them. Mass meetings were called in a way that they did not clash with the church programs and notices were in fact sent to the churches notifying people of community programs. There was a clear understanding that the church is an important social structure in the community. I did not belong to any church and did not even believe in God but I always had respect for faith based organizations. Many things could be burned down in Mbekweni but I can’t recall ever hearing of a church being deliberately destroyed. A number of events and occasions could be disrupted but never ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Public Transport -2010 and Beyond (07-2009)

The Soccer confederation cup has come and gone South Africa was not disgraced on the field of play. We were pleasantly surprised by the performance of Bafana Bafana. They held their own against big names in international football. Off the field of play a lot of good things were said about our organization of the event. One of the major shortcomings related to the country’s transportation system. The FIFA President, Sepp Blatter gave us a seven and a half out of ten and transportation was one of the issues he raised as needing attention before the Soccer World Cup in 2010.  I think a major problem with our public transport system is that it is not client centered. This is a diagnosis that is based on my experience with taxis, trains the bus service.  There was once a bus service in Mbekweni as I was growing up but we later got to depend more on trains to move to other areas. I still can recall getting onto trains that were, sometimes, without windows in winter and very late....
Post a Comment
Read more