ESPPRA PROBES EEC’S E400 MILLION FORENSIC AUDIT TENDER

mfanukhona@times.co.sz

MBABANE – Did Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) follow the law?

It is not yet conclusive that EEC did or did not follow the Public Procurement Act of 2011when it sought the services of a forensic audit.
As a result, in order to clear the air, the Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (ESPPRA) has instituted its own investigation into whether the procurement methods used by EEC were in line with the law.

Madoda Mngomezulu, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the ESPPRA, confirmed that the authority instituted the probe for one purpose – how was the procurement carried out?
He was responding to a question on whether the ESPPRA was investigating Prodogy SA (Pty) Ltd which was finally awarded the tender to forensically investigate allegations of fraud, corruption and tendering system manipulative tendencies by the public enterprise’s suppliers.

In his response, Mngomezulu said it was absolutely false that the authority was investigating Prodogy.

methods used and processes
“We are not investigating Prodogy. We are looking at methods used and processes applied during procurement,” he said.
Sifiso Dhlamini, the Corporate Communications Manager at EEC, said there was nothing official received from ESPPRA, and his company would not be in a position to say anything about the issue.

What does the law say?
Section 6 of the Procurement Act provides that a deviation from the use of a public procurement method, rule, process or document may be permitted by the Agency (ESPPRA). This may be possible where exceptional requirements make it impossible, impractical or uneconomical to comply with the Act.
Section 6 (1) (b) further states that ESPPRA may sanction the tender waiver where the market conditions or behaviour do not allow effective application of the methods, rules, processes or documents.

The permission for bypassing tender processes may be granted where national security may be compromised or the deviation could be necessitated by specialised or particular requirements that are regulated or governed by harmonised international standards or practices.
It remains to be seen if EEC will produce evidence that the procurement was done outside the law because of the reasons mentioned above.

Procurement methods
and process

Section 42 states that a procuring entity (EEC in this case) shall use one or the methods specified in the Public Procurement Regulations for all procurement.
However, the preferred methods, according to the Act, shall be (a) an open tendering for goods, works and non-consulting services and (b) request for proposals for consulting services and other methods shall only be used where the procurement meets the conditions for use of an alternative method specified in the Public Procurement Regulations.
 

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