Ekurhuleni breaks silence on tender issue

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11-06-2012
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The Citizen
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Ekurhuleni finally broke their silence on the tender issue as reported on the front page of the RECORD on May 23.

According to Media Relations Manager Justice Mohale, they needed to finalise an official statement by Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM).

The RECORD reported that on November 25, 2010 a tender was granted to implement a new Macro structure within the EMM despite warnings from the legal department that they should not proceed.

According to documentation received by the RECORD the Corporate and Legal Department EMM stated the item does not meet the constitutional requirements of an organ of state tender nor does it meet the MFMA SCM policy requirements.

The Legal department also stated that the decision to approach only four companies can never be fair in their view. Legal also advised that it should be remembered that all bids exceeding R200 000 should be procured through a competitive bidding process and that it stands to reason that there has not been a public invitation of bids.

The Legal department warned that all bids in excess of R10 million should require bidders to submit audited financial statements and that the risk involved in this tender is massive and the threat to the public purse cannot be supported or left at the departments will.

The RECORD received the following response:
"Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality would like to place the following on record with regard to procedures it followed in awarding a tender to deal with its macro structure.

The municipality's proposed macro structure was approved by Council at the end of last year, and was aimed at reorganising some departments, realigning functions and refining employees' competencies.

However, to ensure efficiency in the delivery of services, it was necessary to review the entire structure of the municipality. We wish to therefore correct the assertion that the tender was awarded to deal with the macro structure when in fact in was awarded to source the services of experts to assist the municipality with the entire organisational structure.

Secondly we wish to put on record that this tender followed the tender route as per the prescription of our policy and within the framework of the Municipal Finance Management Act (MFMA).

The policy dictates that the tender should be awarded by the Bid Acquisition Committee (BAC) that is currently chaired by the Chief Financial Officer. During the process of adjudication, various departments provide comments on every bid before the BAC.

It is the prerogative of the BAC, as per corporate governance principles, to consider all the comments made and engage on the merits and demerits of the comments. We have no reason to believe that the BAC did not consider all comments made during the adjudication process."