SLOMOES TENDER: PRINCE SIMELANE WANTS E4.7M BACK

PIGG’S PEAK – Minister of Housing and Urban Development Prince Simelane wants the procurement of a technological solution for local government elections awarded to the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP).

On top of awarding the tender to the RSTP, the minister wants the already spent taxpayers’ funds reclaimed. The tender had been awarded to Slomoes Corporation (PTY) Ltd by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development, a decision which the minister disassociated himself from. “I really trust that the AG (Auditor General), Timothy Matsebula, will work on the issue so that the tender is awarded to RSTP, where we all wanted it to be awarded (sic).  We had hoped that in Parliament, Members of Parliament (MPs) would move a motion to form a select committee which was going to interrogate and precisely deal with the matter. My biggest wish is that all the taxpayers’ money already paid to Slomoes Corporation is reclaimed,” said the minister.

Wondered

The minister said he trusted that the AG and Parliament would not fail to get back the taxpayers’ money. The prince wondered what could then be the work of parliamentarians should they fail to reclaim money spent allegedly erroneously, such as in the case of the local government elections tender. “It cannot be allowed to happen that government can easily lose so much taxpayers’ money for nothing. To prove that they are working, the current Parliament must ensure that the money, which had already been paid out, is reclaimed,” he said. The minister said nothing should be hidden but everything that had to do with spending public funds should be dealt with in a transparent way.

He added that he still had not received the correspondence from the AG, where he was stopping the tender award to Slomoes Corporation (PTY) Ltd to procure the technological solution for local government elections. This publication had reported that the AG had stopped the E12 million elections tender awarded to Slomoes Corporation for the municipal council elections, pending an investigation into the matter.

Letter

Through a letter dated March 20, 2023, directed to the ministry’s Principal Secretary (PS) Clifford Mamba, the AG stated that the decision had been made in accordance with Section 207(8) of the Constitution. Matsebula also stated in his letter that the reason the office of the AG took this decision was that he had received a complaint that PS Mamba’s ministry was in the process of engaging Slomoes Corporation (PTY) Ltd to procure the technological solution for local government elections, using a single source procurement method. The AG further highlighted in the letter that he also noted that public funds amounting to E8 million were transferred from Head 60 to the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development’s account 242410110061 and it was later transferred by the ministry to Matsapha Town Board.  “I write to notify you that I disallow the expenditure for the procurement of the technological solution for the local government elections, pending an investigation into the matter,” reads the letter in part.

Matsebula also stated that although this deviation had been approved by the Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (EPPRA), it had come to light that a similar elections management system could be developed by the RSTP and, therefore, a single source procurement method was not justified. Matsebula advised the PS to also note that Cabinet Circular Memo reference CPM 3/1/1/1, dated June 21, 2022, entitled, ‘Information Communications and Technology Solutions’ states that ‘all ICT-related solutions shall be implemented through the Royal Science and Technology Park henceforth’. “This is a Cabinet directive and your ministry was expected to fully comply with it. I hope this provides a reasonable explanation why this expenditure is disallowed,” reads the letter.

The company was awarded the tender ahead of the RSTP, which had offered to do the exercise for E800 000. Another company which the minister identified as Wits Tech also made a bid for the tender, with a cost of E1.2 million. Confirming that Slomoes Corporation had already been paid for the tender was Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg, who stated that the company had actually utilised E4.7 million of the total tender price. He said this in Parliament during a sitting in the House of Assembly, where the issue of the tender had been raised by the MPs.

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