Blamed for wasting millions: Hiring of contractors questioned

Ratepayers and businesses have lashed out at the OR Tambo district municipality for spending more than R10-million in a year for three private companies to maintain water pumps and water stations in its five local municipalities.

This is despite the municipality having its own technicians able to do the work.

But municipal spokesman Ayongezwa Lungisa yesterday defended the district authority, saying the service providers had the required expertise necessary to augment the efforts of the municipality’s own technicians to ensure a sustainable water supply in its area of jurisdiction.

The Saturday Dispatch was alerted to the practice after a notice for the amendment of mechanical and electrical contracts was placed in the paper on April 20.

In the notice, the municipality revealed that in July last year it had appointed the three service providers for a period of a year to support maintenance of its pumps, pump stations and mechanical and electrical work in the water and waste treatment works in King Sabata Dalindyebo, Mhlontlo and Nyandeni, Port St Johns and Ingquza Hill clusters.

“The contractors for the service providers were solicited through the supply chain management in a competitive bidding system.

“However, due to the backlog that was experienced on the ground and conditions of the infrastructure, the budget for the execution of the work as per the contractor has been exhausted, while the contract period is still valid,” read the notice.

It further stated that the reason the budget had been depleted was because most of the pumps and pump stations had been vandalised, which necessitated the purchase and replacement of parts, utilising contract fees.

The municipality wanted to amend the contract agreements, which would see the contractors paid at a base rate for the remainder of their contracts.

According to the contracts, the district municipality budgeted more than R4.7-million for KSD work, in excess of R4.3-million for the Mhlontlo and Nyandeni cluster and nearly R3-million for the Port St Johns and Ingquza Hill cluster.

OR Tambo District Chamber of Business president Vuyisile Ntlabati argued that municipalities had to employ competent people.

“Outsourcing is very expensive and can have some dangers. The focus should have been on recruiting people with proper skills. That would have saved us millions of rands,” he said.

Mthatha Ratepayers’ and Residents’ Association spokesman Madyibi Ngxekana claimed the municipality had enough technicians to do the same work as the private companies.

Ngxekana said the money should have been better spent on capacitating their own technicians.

OR Tambo UDM councillor Mncedisi Bunzana claimed there were many projects undertaken by the district municipality where contractors left without completing the job but still got paid huge sums of money.

Some of the contractors had even been re-hired to do other projects.

Lungisa said the municipality’s approved organogram was not fully populated and that the municipality had a model of acquiring short-term contracts to support its operations.

The Dispatch has previously reported that OR Tambo bosses earlier this month caved in and agreed to pay more than R73-million to pay off a debt owed to Water and Sanitation Minister Nomvula Mokonyane’s department. — sikhon@

dispatch.co.za