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A preliminary report by the Auditor-General (AG) of South Africa into the national Department of Public Works and Infrastructure’s (DPWI) tenders to rebuild State-owned properties damaged by the April floods has revealed widespread risks of corruption.

These funds are meant to rebuild crucial infrastructure and it is disheartening, but hardly surprising, that these funds are in danger of being looted.

The AG has recommended an investigation into instances of non-compliance to determine the cause of the risks and requested that irregular expenditure identified from the projects should be included in the 2022/23 annual financial statements. The AG’s office has also referred the matter to the labour relations and legal services unit to investigate further.

The DA calls upon the DPWI to refuse all payments to any company that has been flagged until the investigation is completed.

The AG’s report has flagged:

• Tenders to companies owned by the same director;
• Service providers owned by State employees;
• Suppliers that did not exist on government’s central supplier database;
• Service providers approached by DPWI using an unfair deviation process that failed to provide market analysis to assess price reasonability;
• Five quotations exceeding R1 million awarded to the same company;
• Quoted amount by service providers exceeding the authorised amount;
• Quotations received after the contractor had commenced on site; and
• Projects not completed within the stipulated time.

DPWI’s blatant circumvention of tender procurement processes has proven yet again that the ANC government cannot be trusted. Clearly, nothing has been learnt from previous scandals and any company or official found to have committed any wrongdoing should face the full might of the law. Any officials involved in any tender wrongdoing should be fired immediately.

After State capture, we were promised that there would be no more corruption; when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, we were promised that there would be no PPE corruption; when the floods came in KZN, President Cyril Ramaphosa promised that there would be no corruption in tenders and procurement, yet here we are.

The ANC’s continuous decline means the possibility that a competent DA-led coalition will govern South Africa from 2024 where good governance and accountability will be the order of the day.

Issued by Samantha Graham-Maré MP - DA Shadow Minister of Public Works and Infrastructure