The Star E-dition

Board says it has been subjected to ‘vilification’

MANYANE MANYANE

THE board of the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) says it has been subjected to “public vilification, intense emotional blackmail and veiled intimidation” after cancelling R17 billion-worth of tenders due to irregularities.

Without mentioning individuals, the board, chaired by Themba Mhambi, said its detractors namedropped President Cyril Ramaphosa by accusing it of having cancelled “presidential projects”.

In a statement released on Monday, the agency’s board said it was told that the projects should have been referred to the National Treasury and its political head, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, after it found matters of concern with procurement processes.

At the centre of the saga is infrastructure company Raubex Group Ltd, one of the bidders which allegedly stood to benefit from the irregular contracts. The company has threatened to take Sanral to court for cancelling the contracts.

This came after Sanral and Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula announced the cancellation of five tenders for critical road infrastructure projects, citing irregularities in the tender process.

This has allegedly created tension between Mbalula and Public Enterprises Minister Pravin Gordhan.

In the statement, the board said the subtext of the attacks against its members was that they have undermined “these important people and structures” by not endorsing the proposed awards, and therefore must be dealt with “as brainless, delinquent and intransigent children”.

“In shameless and selfish efforts to turn the South African public against us, we have been presented as killers of the construction industry and portrayed as suppressors of job creation. What is deliberately hidden from the public is that we have, in two tenders, thwarted the very killing part of that industry and the suppression of job creation for ordinary people,” said the board statement.

They said the board was frustrated by the total irregular exclusion of subcontracting in the Mtentu tendon contract, and the reduction by a massive 50% of the routine 30% subcontracting in the Gauteng Improvement Freeway Project tender.

The board said this exclusion and reduction – which was decided on by unauthorised individuals and structures without board approval – amounted to subcontractors (SMMEs of designated groups) being denied and deprived of R2 billion in business opportunities.

They said this amounted to thousands of South Africans being denied job opportunities.

“It is this board which is defending those economic participation and empowerment rights of those people, but to fool the public, some bidders have angrily created the impression that they have the best interests of those people at heart when, in fact, those SMMEs and local communities would be largely kept out of benefiting from the projects if this board had not seen through this injustice and allowed the current tenders to be awarded as they were proposed to be.”

The Sanral board rejected claims that it was “killing the industry”.

“We invite you to objectively check the record of awards and payments made to the industry over the past three years of this board’s stewardship of Sanral.”

The board said over the past three years Sanral had awarded a total of R16.1bn to the engineering consulting part of the industry, and R27bn to the contracting part.

“Overall, if you consider the industry in its totality, over the past three years Sanral has awarded just shy of R50bn to the industry. One of the leaders of the attack on this board has received, during the said three years, 21% of the R27bn awarded in construction contractor jobs.”

The board said because the facts contradict “this nefariousness that we are killing the industry”, it could only “surmise that this is nothing but a gambit aimed at breeding government and public antipathy towards a board which is frustrating plans for external influence over this public entity”.

It suggested that some of the service providers which attacked Sanral had benefited handsomely from contracts awarded by the agency, adding that smacked of an entitlement mentality.

“The question we must ask, and answer then, is if this recent nonaward hasn’t interfered with the culture of entitlement? How else can we explain the amount of vitriol spewed at this board for executing its fiduciary duty to the organisation and the people of South Africa?” the board asked.

It maintained that it had always acted within the ambit of the law and in the best interests of South Africans.

“We, therefore, consider the invocation of the president, our minister, and the National Treasury in this matter by some bidders to be mischievous and bordering on illegality,” said the board, adding that procurement disputes were not resolved through public pressure via the media, but through the objectivity and independence of the country’s law courts.

The board said the tendering system it devised must be fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost-effective.

Sanral spokesperson Vusi Mona yesterday refused to say who had vilified the agency’s board, when and why. “Check the first article on the story, written by Roy Cokayne, and you will see who vilified the board, when and in what sense,” said Mona.

METRO

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2022-05-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

2022-05-26T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thestar.pressreader.com/article/281565179381335

African News Agency