A Pretoria-based fleet management company was awarded a “piggyback” tender worth R52-million to install vehicle tracking systems in more than 3000 Eastern Cape government vehicles in 2015 – a tender provincial treasury was not aware of.
The company, Afrirent, owned by Senzo Tsabedze, received the nod to do the work for the government fleet management services entity situated in East London.
They started working with the transport department in May 2015 after it piggybacked on Afrirent’s similar Tshwane Metro tender. By law, the department should have received a “go ahead” from treasury before awarding the tender, using treasury regulation 16(A)6.6, which allows the accounting officer to participate in a contract awarded by another state organ.
Provincial treasury spokesman Pumelele Godongwana said they were not aware of the contract at the time the deal was struck. “However, provincial treasury has put in place procedures to follow for any department, constitutional institution or public entity that wishes to participate in another contract concluded by another organ of state.”
Provincial transport spokeswoman Khuselwa Rantjie said the agreement to participate in the Tshwane/Afrirent contract was signed in February 2015 in line with regulation 16(A)6.6.
“At this stage , the instruction that departments need to first source approval from provincial treasury was not applicable,” said Rantjie.
Two independent Dispatch sources said the entity should have worked together with treasury and “met all the required legislation”.
“Any piggyback tender needs to be approved by treasury, when they have to look for detailed reasons or motivation for participation, plus reasons for the inability of the department to undertake its own procurement process, and proof that a competitive bidding process was followed by the relevant organ of state. Now four vehicles are stolen,” said the source.
Rantjie confirmed the stolen vehicles. “From inception of the contract, four vehicles were stolen. One vehicle, that was installed with a tracking system, was recovered and three vehicles which did not have tracking systems were not recovered,” she said.
According to Afrirent’s presentation to the department in 2015, they promised to reduce unauthorised usage of the vehicles by giving each driver a tag to monitor the way they drove the vehicle.
The administration has more than 17000 drivers, according to transport department sources.
“They promised to provide user-defined access, customised reports and the ability to generate real-time reports with vehicle-detailed locations and violating reports. Also promised were daily utilisation reports, summary reports and detailed electronic trip-sheets,” said a second source.
Responding to questions from the Dispatch, Afrirent director Thenjiwe Tsabedze said they had a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the department that “speaks to the confidentiality of our contract”.
“We at no point promised anything to the department but merely agreed to an SLA that would dictate the scope of work, time-frames, deliverables and execution of services which included but was not limited to issuing of driver tags as well as immobilising of fitted vehicles,” said Tsabedze.
So far the department has paid R34-million to the company.
A further R8.5-million contract extension was signed in October, extending the contract to January.
“Afrirent provided all services as per the signed SLA including reports that are compiled on a daily, weekly and monthly basis – over and above the access departments have been granted to a web-based system that allows for all reports,” said Tsabedze. — bonganif@dispatch.co.za
Transport caught in R52m tender tangle
The company, Afrirent, owned by Senzo Tsabedze, received the nod to do the work for the government fleet management services entity situated in East London.
They started working with the transport department in May 2015 after it piggybacked on Afrirent’s similar Tshwane Metro tender. By law, the department should have received a “go ahead” from treasury before awarding the tender, using treasury regulation 16(A)6.6, which allows the accounting officer to participate in a contract awarded by another state organ.
Provincial treasury spokesman Pumelele Godongwana said they were not aware of the contract at the time the deal was struck. “However, provincial treasury has put in place procedures to follow for any department, constitutional institution or public entity that wishes to participate in another contract concluded by another organ of state.”
Provincial transport spokeswoman Khuselwa Rantjie said the agreement to participate in the Tshwane/Afrirent contract was signed in February 2015 in line with regulation 16(A)6.6.
“At this stage , the instruction that departments need to first source approval from provincial treasury was not applicable,” said Rantjie.
Two independent Dispatch sources said the entity should have worked together with treasury and “met all the required legislation”.
“Any piggyback tender needs to be approved by treasury, when they have to look for detailed reasons or motivation for participation, plus reasons for the inability of the department to undertake its own procurement process, and proof that a competitive bidding process was followed by the relevant organ of state. Now four vehicles are stolen,” said the source.
Rantjie confirmed the stolen vehicles. “From inception of the contract, four vehicles were stolen. One vehicle, that was installed with a tracking system, was recovered and three vehicles which did not have tracking systems were not recovered,” she said.
According to Afrirent’s presentation to the department in 2015, they promised to reduce unauthorised usage of the vehicles by giving each driver a tag to monitor the way they drove the vehicle.
The administration has more than 17000 drivers, according to transport department sources.
“They promised to provide user-defined access, customised reports and the ability to generate real-time reports with vehicle-detailed locations and violating reports. Also promised were daily utilisation reports, summary reports and detailed electronic trip-sheets,” said a second source.
Responding to questions from the Dispatch, Afrirent director Thenjiwe Tsabedze said they had a Service Level Agreement (SLA) with the department that “speaks to the confidentiality of our contract”.
“We at no point promised anything to the department but merely agreed to an SLA that would dictate the scope of work, time-frames, deliverables and execution of services which included but was not limited to issuing of driver tags as well as immobilising of fitted vehicles,” said Tsabedze.
So far the department has paid R34-million to the company.
A further R8.5-million contract extension was signed in October, extending the contract to January.
“Afrirent provided all services as per the signed SLA including reports that are compiled on a daily, weekly and monthly basis – over and above the access departments have been granted to a web-based system that allows for all reports,” said Tsabedze. — bonganif@dispatch.co.za
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