City speaker clears Landingwe in tender row

city speaker clears landingwe in tender row

city speaker gavin paulse's probe into mayoral committee member danile
landingwe's controversial role in giving a r25-million roads contract to bth
construction, has exonerated both landingwe and the committee.

the speaker's findings are in direct contrast to the city's confidential
forensic investigative audit (fia) report, exposed by the cape times, that
fingered landingwe as interfering with the tender process by pressuring
senior council employee, mark bondietti, to approve bth.

on tuesday paulse's spokesperson bernie levendal said: "there is no prima
facie evidence against councillor landingwe."

bondietti said he got a telephone call from landingwe who said bth was not
to be excluded.

the fia report found that bth was "non-responsive", which means they should
have been disqualified from further tender processes.

instead, they were awarded the r25-million tender - only to have the city
institute a r13,6-million rescue package when bth could not complete the
job.

fia's mandate means they could investigate only the aspects that led up to
the tender committee's political decision and not the political
decision-making itself.

the speaker's probe followed a recommendation by the public protector after
da councillor belinda walker lodged a complaint last year.

said levendal: "element consulting engineers had, at the closure of tender
invitations, evaluated them without any involvement or interference from
anyone else. not from councillor landingwe or mr bondietti.

but the fia report stated that element consulting engineers "correctly"
recommended bth be excluded.

she said there was no evidence to suggest mr bondietti had reported the
alleged interference to the tpc.

"there is no evidence to suggest that decisions of element consulting
engineers, the tender and procurement committee, mayco or the council had
been affected by the alleged interference," said levendal.

on hearing that the speaker had cleared him, landingwe said on tuesday: "i
feel happy. i felt very bad at the time when somebody (bondietti) pointed
fingers at me."

walker dismissed the findings, saying she was "totally dissatisfied with the
investigation".

"the speaker is there to protect the executive, so i am not surprised. this
has proved their people are untouchable," she said.

walker is considering taking the matter further.