Times Of Swaziland: PSPF IN E4.5M TENDER MESS WITH SA COMPANY

PSPF IN E4.5M TENDER MESS WITH SA COMPANY
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Welcome Dlamini on 16/04/2023 16:14:00


MBABANE – The Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF) has been ordered to revoke a
tender it had awarded to a Cape Town-based investment firm.
This is subsequent to findings that the processes followed by PSPF in awarding
the tender, for the provision of investment consultancy services, to Riscura
Solutions Eswatini (Pty) Ltd was flawed. Bloomberg reports that Riscura
Solutions (Pty) Ltd is an independent investment advisor and financial analytics
provider that offer investment decision support in developed and emerging
markets. The company, which was founded in 1999, provides a wide range of
services to the African investor base in listed and unlisted investments on the
continent. In its website, Riscura states that, though originating in South
Africa (SA), its footprint has grown substantially since 1999, with offices
across Africa, the United Kingdom (UK) and China, bringing that ‘silent
revolution’ to clients around the world with combined assets of more than
US$200 billion. It also lists Mauritius, Namibia, Nigeria, Zambia, Kenya,
Botswana and Zimbabwe as other countries where Riscura has a presence.
With the Eswatini subsidiary, the Times SUNDAY has reliably established that the
company has listed Neville Stewart Blake Field and Mphile Sibandze as the
‘persons linked to the company’. Field is also listed as Director of
Riscura’s SA and UK operations. In 2020, the PSPF invited tenders for the
investment consultancy services and a number of companies, both from Eswatini
and SA expressed interest. These included Alexander Forbes in partnership with
the Eswatini Employee Benefits Consultants (EEBC), Orange Partners in
partnership with Novare (known as the Orange Consortium), Insika Financial
Services in partnership with Simeka Actuaries and Imbewu Yesive Investments.
When the tender was initially issued, Riscura did not participate. The PSPF
applied for a grant of a deviation from the use of normal tender methods to the
Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (ESPPRA) on July 2, 2020 and this
was granted by the agency on July 9, 2020.
attached
In the deviation application, the PSPF attached documents with the names of
tenderers and among these were the EEBC and Novare, Riscura, Orange and Imbewu
Yesive. Following an evaluation team of the PSPF, which comprised of the
executive committee (EXCO) and the investment committee (IC), Orange was
eventually recommended by the IC to be awarded the tender. It has emerged that
Riscura did make it to the top three because it had not yet received its licence
or certificate from the Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA), yet this
was a prerequisite to tender. Riscura reportedly only managed to secure the
licence later on.
However, before Orange could be awarded the tender, allegations of professional
misconduct against them popped up and this resulted in the award being put in
abeyance pending an investigation into the allegations. Orange was subsequently
cleared of the allegations, but the PSPF took a decision to cancel the tender
award due to the extended period it had taken to finalise the investigations. In
November 2021, fresh letters of invitation to tender were issued to all the
initial tenderers to re-tender, except for Balondolozi Investment Services which
was conflicted in applying for the tender. An evaluation of the tenders was
carried out by the EXCO and, in terms of the total weighted scores (both
technical and financial scores) EEBC partnering with Alexander Forbes came tops
with a total score of 85.5 per cent, followed by Orange with 70.9 per cent and
on third position was Riscura with 63.9 per cent.
assessment
However, despite being ranked third in the total weighted score, Riscura was top
on the technical assessment, with a technical score of 82.7 per cent; EEBC was
second with 79.3 per cent.
The top three tenderers on the total weighted scores were shortlisted for an
interview by the IC which, in its assessment, considered the technical
assessment and, therefore, recommended Riscura and the other two tenderers for
negotiations on the financial proposals. Finally, the IC recommended the
appointment of Riscura as the successful tenderer for the project and this
recommendation was adopted by the PSPF Board, which appointed Riscura as its
investment advisor for both its foreign and domestic portfolio for a three-year
period. A notice of intention to award, which displayed only the technical
evaluation scores and not the total weighted scores of all the tenderers, was
published on November 14, 2023.
The EEBC challenged this intention to award the tender to Riscura by filing a
review application with the ESPPRA and listed these grounds; the nationality of
EEBC, cancellation of the initial tender by the PSPF in September 2021, the
pricing of EEBC’s tender, and non-compliance with the Public Procurement
Regulations of 2020 by the PSPF’s failure to adhere to the total weighted
scores in awarding the tender to Riscura. The ESPPRA’s independent review
committee (IRC) heard the application and delivered its judgment on March 24,
2023 where it found that the PSPF’s process of awarding the tender to Riscura
was flawed, mainly on two grounds. Firstly, the IRC found that there was no
basis for the decision to consider only the technical score instead of the total
weighted score. In its meeting, the PSPF is said to have failed to give reasons
justifying this decision and it did not appear in its deliberations, therefore,
the decisions was baseless.
recommended
“This is buttressed by the evidence that during the assessment of the first
tender process in November 2020, some members of the IC proposed that Alexander
Forbes and EEBC be recommended for the tender since they came first after
scoring. Eventually, due to disagreement, the decision on which party to be
recommended for the tender was put into a vote. This, therefore, shows that
there was no uniformity in the latest decision or basis by PSPF that the scoring
on the evaluation took precedence,” said the IRC in its ruling, further
stating that there was merit in the EEBC’s ground for review. The IRC also
found that the decision by the PSPF to reinvite those that competed for the same
tender in 2020 to submit tenders for it in 2021 was wanting. Primarily, the IRC
noted that the assertion on behalf of the PSPF that Riscura did not have a
licence or certificate from the FSRA, hence it did not make it into the top
three of the initial tender was telling. “The effect of this is that Riscura
failed in the preliminary examination of the tenderers, owing to this
outstanding licence or certificate. Since the evaluation of the initial tender
was done, this presupposes that the deadline for the submission of the tender
documents by the tenderers had long passed and, therefore, Riscura fell short of
meeting the tender requirements,” said the IRC.
The committee said, therefore, it was a flaw in the tender process for the PSPF
to have invited Riscura to re-tender in 2021 when the same entity did not meet
the threshold requirements in 2020. “More so because the tender that was being
reissued was the same Tender No.1 of 2020. It would have been a different ball
game altogether had PSPF been tantamount to accepting a late tender for year
2021. Therefore, this conduct by PSPF was tantamount to accepting a later tender
through the back door,” stated the IRC.
concerned
The committee said for all intents and purposes, Riscura was a non-responsive
tenderer in as far as Tender No.1 of 2020 was concerned. “Furthermore,
PSPF’s decision to reinvite the tenderers to compete for the same Tender No.1
of 2020 in year 2021 is found wanting. This is because the initial tender was
not suspended, but was cancelled and thus aborted as it were,” said the
committee. According to the IRC, the PSPF ought to have conceived a new tender
in 2021 regardless of whether the terms of the request for proposals (RFP) were
the same – an observation the committee said it was making in line with its
investigative powers. In light of these factors, the IRC ruled that the EEBC’s
application succeeded and the following orders were made: The intention to award
the contract to Riscura was being set aside; and the PSPF, if need be and still
relevant to its needs, to commence de novo the procurement process for the
investment consultancy services with clear criteria and guidelines for the
responsive tenderers.
Reacting to this ruling, Riscura issued a statement on its website on April 6,
2023 expressing commitment to compliance and professionalism in the PSPF tender
process. The company said it was crucial to note that it had not been officially
appointed as a consultant to the PSPF, as a review process was to be carried out
by the regulator of public tenders. “After the incumbent consultant expressed
dissatisfaction with the review conducted by the PSPF during the mandatory
10-day objection period following the public announcement of the outcome, the
Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency put the contracting process on
hold for review,” reads the statement in part.
managed
Riscura said the ESPPRA subsequently identified flaws in the PSPF’s tender
process, leading to the outcome being set aside. “The reasons for setting
aside the tender related to the way the PSPF managed the tender process itself,
rather than any of the participants, including Riscura,” the company said.
Riscura said it participated in both closed (limited participants) tender
processes in good faith and met all the RFP requirements without any unfair
advantage. “We respect the decision of the public procurement regulator to set
aside the outcome and await further communication from the PSPF. If we can add
value to the fund and its members, we commit to participating in future requests
for proposals along with other participants,” the company added.