EMANGOZOLO CITED IN E5.9M CONTRACT SIGNED WITHOUT AG CONSENT

LOBAMBA – The Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy admitted to the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that it signed a E5.9 million contract that was not vetted by the attorney general.

The Auditor General (AG) noted glaring anomalies in the E5.9 million contract between the ministry and McGregor Blue Investments. The South African company, based in Cape Town, was enlisted to review basic fuel pricing methodology in the Kingdom of Eswatini in 2021. The attorney general is entrusted by Section 77(5)( b ) of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Eswatini, to draw or peruse agreements, contracts, treaties, conventions and documents, by whatever name called, in which government is a party or has an interest.

Yesterday, the Auditor General, Timothy Matsebula, as well as the PAC, were shocked when the former was going through the contract that was signed on January 25, 2021. Matsebula pointed out three glaring misses in the contract, that could have cost the taxpayer millions of Emalangeni.  The first miss of the contract was that it was never vetted by the attorney general. The second anomaly was that the signatures of the company director, Guy McGregor, were inconsistent across pages, while some crucial pages were not signed.

Witnesses

In addition, some pages were not numbered and there were no witnesses’ signatures. The only signatures were those of the Principal Secretary (PS), Dorcas Dlamini and McGregor.
“Page numbers 23 and 24 are missing. The controlling officer did not endorse her signature on page 21 of the contract, yet this page contains the contract sum. Section 6.1 (lump-sum payment) of the contract indicated that the total payment to the consultant shall not exceed the contract price, which is an all-inclusive fixed lump sum covering all costs required to carry out the services described in Appendix A, however, the cited appendix was not attached. Some totals were not arithmetically correct. These include the totals for the remuneration of the financial analyst specialist and petroleum supply expert, travelling expenses and training and capacity building.

There were no witnesses’ signatures,” stated Matsebula, as he presented the audit query that was captured in the Financial Audit Report on the Consolidated Government Accounts of the Kingdom of Eswatini for the financial year ended March 31, 2022. The Members of Parliament (MPs) were concerned about the issue, because it could have exposed government, should the contract have hidden clauses, not seen by the ministry’s legal advisor. “We know all contracts should be vetted by the attorney general, but you used your legal officer. How did you fail to get witnesses’ signatures?” asked the PAC Vice Chairperson and Nhlambeni MP, Manzi Zwane.

Ngwempisi MP Bhekibandla Vilakati, wondered how the ministry continued to rely on a contract that had such glaring mistakes. He noted that to rectify the mistakes in the contract, the ministry’s Director of Energy Department, Thabile Nkosi, told the PAC that they had printed another contract that had rectified the mistakes. He said even the corrected contract carried more or less glaring mistakes. “How are you going to work with so many mistakes repeatedly and the fact that they had to be picked by an outsider?” he asked. The MP alleged that something was being hidden by the ministry and required deeper investigations.

Mistakes

Phondo MP Bonginkosi Dube, said since both contracts had mistakes, he advised that the ministry should have started the entire contract afresh. He noted that the auditor general, in the first contract, had picked that the contract was not vetted by the attorney general and wondered if the corrected contract was vetted. Nkosi said even the second contract was not taken to the attorney general for vetting.  Gege MP Magesi Dlamini, pleaded with the ministry to put control measures in place, to avoid such negligence in future. Nkosi acknowledged that the contract had a lot of mistakes.

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