KwaZulu-Natal school feeding scandal: Special Investigation Unit steps in:
The Special Investigating Unit (SIU) has been looking into alleged corruption in the R2.4??billion KwaZulu-Natal school nutrition programme debacle since February.
Millions of learners have struggled without the breakfast and lunch served as part of the national school nutrition programme since the Easter break because the company granted the tender either failed to deliver food or provided rotten food.
The tender, awarded to Pacina Retail (Pty) Ltd, owned by self-styled philanthropist AmaZulu FC director Manzini Zungu, first drew the SIU’s attention earlier this year after a whistleblower tipped the unit off about the contract.
But the provincial education department’s director general, Nkosinathi Ngcobo, has failed to provide the SIU with the tender documentation it requested two months ago in connection with the deal, which has now been scrapped.
Pacina’s failure to supply the nearly 5?400 schools with food has also set off alarm bells, with both Premier Nomusa Dube-Ncube, who has appointed her adviser, Linda Zama, to investigate the tender, as well as with Basic Education Minister Angie Motshekga.
Motshekga’s national department funds the school nutrition programme and she has written to KwaZulu-Natal MEC for education Mbali Fraser demanding all documentation for the award to a single service provider, a major deviation from the national system for supplying school nutrition projects at predominantly no-fee schools around the country.
The tender has been scrapped by the department, according to ANC provincial secretary Bheki Mtolo, but Fraser has remained silent on the matter, despite increasing pressure on her from within the party and government over the fiasco.
In a letter to Ngcobo on 17??February, SIU KwaZulu-Natal head Ashish Gosai said the investigating unit had received allegations from a whistleblower that Pacina “did not meet the tender specifications, yet was awarded the tender”.
Gosai said the SIU was mandated to only investigate matters regarding state institutions and public money and required the department’s cooperation in assessing whether it could proceed.
“In assessing the allegations and whether [the] same can be pursued by the SIU, the SIU requires a measure of corroboration of the allegations together with documents where possible to support the motivation for a proclamation.”
Gosai said the allegations regarding the irregular tender award — for three years with an option to extend by another two — required clarity from the SIU’s case assessment committee.
Gosai asked Ngcobo to provide the supply chain documentation regarding the tender, the bid specifications, the bid evaluation and adjudication process, a copy of the contract, a cost breakdown and proof that the tender specifications were met by Pacina.
Ngcobo was asked to do so by 27??February, but had not done so by the time of writing.
Pressure has been ramping up on Fraser — and Zungu — over the failure of the company to supply the schools, which were previously serviced by local-level companies that provided fresh food and groceries to the school kitchens.
By last week the department had taken over supplying food to schools in some parts of the province because of Pacina’s logistical shortcomings and was scrambling to come up with a plan for May.
On Wednesday Mtolo said the party leadership had met Fraser and told her to terminate the contract with Pacina and to revert to the relationship that had existed with small service providers.
Mtolo said the ANC would ask the province’s Ithala Development Finance Corporation to assist local level service providers with credit facilities so that they would be able to resume school feeding at local level.
Fraser’s spokesperson, Sqinikezo Shezi, had not responded to questions about the tender — and why the department had failed to cooperate with the SIU — at the time of writing.
The Mail & Guardian has seen an email, purported to be from Zungu, to Ngcobo in which he informs the education department head that Pacina “have decided to opt out of the NSNP [national school nutrition programme] contract”.
Zungu said that all costs incurred by retailer Spar in the contract “will be paid by the department of education”.
Pacina owns a number of Spars and Tops bottle stores in the province. It appears that Pacina received the tender on the basis that Spar would provide the logistics and food after a successful “pilot project” in one area, for which Zungu’s company had initially tendered.
Pacina’s chief executive, Sean Brimacombe, has historical links with the Spar group, and insiders say he and Zungu had planned to leverage this in using the retailer’s stores, warehouses and logistics capacity to meet the conditions of the tender.
But the agreement between Spar and Zungu appears to have gone sour before the tender could be implemented.
In March, Spar managing director Angelo Swartz wrote to Zungu telling him that although Spar had assisted him with a limited “pilot” on the basis of which he had received the full tender, it did not have the capacity to supply him beyond the initial pilot.
He said Spar’s participation had been restricted to “providing supply and logistical assistance for a limited scope” and that the limited agreement was only meant to have commenced in June 2023.
“We have made it clear that at the moment our supply and assistance cannot currently meet the scope of the full tender,” he said.
Swartz instructed Zungu to write to the department telling it he did not have the capacity to deliver on the tender scope and that he had reached a new arrangement with Spar.
In terms of this agreement, Zungu would have to apply for credit and order goods from Spar distribution centres 21 days in advance and would have to take responsibility for deliveries to the schools from Spar centres.
Zungu, who describes AmaZulu owner Sandile Zungu as his “brother”, undertook to respond to detailed questions from the M&G about his company’s logistical capacity and what went wrong.
Zungu then referred queries to his lawyers, who in turn said they had no mandate from him to comment.
At the time of writing he had ignored several more calls and messages from the M&G.
Democratic Alliance MP Imraan Keeka said he welcomed the decision by the premier, Motshekga and the SIU to step in, but expressed concerns that the investigation would be delayed.
“Despite the premier’s probe, the DA is not convinced that the NSNP crisis will end soon. We believe that it will only deepen over time and that probes by the premier and the national minister are smokescreens and delaying tactics that will cause further misery,” he said.
Keeka said it was “fortunate” that the SIU investigation would mitigate delays in investigations by the premier’s office, some of which had taken up to five years to complete.
“This cannot happen when children are starving,” he said, adding that the department had given little or no consideration to the immediate breach of contract by Pacina.
In a letter to Keeka, the SIU confirmed that it had requested documentation about the tender from the department, but that it had not been forthcoming.
Zungu may also face a criminal investigation after members of uMsinisi WokuZimilela, an organisation that has been “visiting” high profile politicians’ homes over service delivery failures, laid fraud charges against him on Tuesday.
Ramakgopa comes up against a Ramaphosa-created monster: Mantashe:
Of the many criticisms of the Jacob Zuma presidency, one of the most critical, and which fed into its dysfunction, especially in his second and final term, was his bloated cabinet.
The factional divisions in the governing ANC that were exposed in the immediate aftermath of his axing as Thabo Mbeki’s deputy president in 2005 played a significant part in increasing the size of cabinet, with ministerial appointments regarded as reward for fealty and aimed at plastering over the cracks in a splintering alliance.
Eight more ministers and their entourage of blue lights were introduced to public expenditure, not to mention the staff.
Zuma’s successor President Cyril Ramaphosa was brought in with the mandate to return to good governance in the public sector, rebuilding the strength of institutions hollowed out during the “nine wasted years”. Hence the new president’s decision to merge 14 ministries and a return to a 28-member cabinet.
The more svelte cabinet was welcomed by all spheres of society and key backers in business lobby groups as a sign of a government getting back to work — the “thuma mina” moment. It was an easy win but one that has returned to haunt a president under pressure, who is struggling to get a grip on the electricity crisis the country is facing.
The merger of the department of mining and that of energy into the department of mineral resources and energy (DMRE) under one of Ramaphosa’s most powerful lieutenants in the party, Gwede Mantashe, has complicated his response to the electricity crisis.
With the country in the grip of stages four and six load-shedding, and the real prospect of stage eight in winter, managing the crisis on a policy front has become near impossible with a mining-friendly minister who played a large part in Ramaphosa’s rise to power.
Enter Kgosientsho Ramokgopa, whom, as the minister of electricity in the presidency, Ramaphosa has tasked with bringing load-shedding to heel.
However, Ramokgopa’s struggle to be given ministerial powers is understood to have started something of a turf war between him, Mantashe and another ANC heavyweight, Pravin Gordhan, who, as the minister of public enterprises, oversees Eskom.
Between them, Mantashe and Gordhan are entrusted with addressing the crisis on two fronts: managing policy and the procurement of new generation capacity through the DMRE and, through the department of public enterprises (DPE), stabilising the state power utility.
In order to do his job, Ramokgopa needs some of Mantashe’s powers and some of Gordhan’s. A minister of electricity with a mandate to end load-shedding needs the powers in section 46 of the Electricity Regulation Act, according to energy economist Lungile Mashele. The Act gives these powers to the minister of mineral resources and energy.
Ramokgopa would also need oversight over Eskom, which lies with the DPE, although, if Ramaphosa’s administration sees through the ANC’s conference resolutions, this could also eventually fall under Mantashe.
Section 46 empowers the minister of mineral resources and energy, in consultation with the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa), to determine new generation capacity and what type of energy sources are needed to ensure an uninterrupted supply of electricity.
The section also allows the minister to procure new capacity for either the short or the long term.
In his presentation to the ANC’s national executive committee meeting over the weekend, Ramokgopa recommended, among other things, that preparatory work be undertaken to explore a “mega bid window” or a rolling bid window for electricity procurement.
Without any procurement powers, Ramokgopa will have to ask Mantashe’s department to develop a proposal for the mega bid window in order to make it a reality.
According to section 97 of the Constitution, the president can transfer any power or function entrusted to a minister to another member of his cabinet. Without these powers, Mashele said, there is no point in having a minister of electricity. As it stands, the position creates an additional reporting line without a clear outcome.
Mantashe’s portfolio is massive, but the previously separate mineral resources and energy departments are invariably linked, Mashele said.
“Electricity is a component of energy, which bodes well for the minerals energy complex. Also, if one is forward looking, one will see that a lot of mining houses and energy companies are diversifying their business model and will end up being electricity companies.”
However, Mashele said, merging the departments under Mantashe has had no bearing on the government’s ability to deal with the energy crisis, other than — perhaps — enabling PetroSA, Nersa and Eskom to better work together.
When Ramaphosa merged the two departments in May 2019, the aim was to better capacitate and respond to the strategic objectives of the National Development Plan, which envisions the development of an integrated energy sector by 2030.
The merger also fitted into Ramaphosa’s vision to streamline government departments, which had become bloated under Zuma.
Indeed it was Ramaphosa’s predecessor who, shortly after taking office in 2009, divided the former department of minerals and energy into two separate departments.
Zuma also split education into two ministries, one for basic education and the other for higher education and training, and created four new departments.
Ramaphosa’s decision to consolidate the energy and mining portfolios under Mantashe, and to undo Zuma’s blunders, made a lot of sense at the time — even if it did create a behemoth of a department, said Happy Khambule, Business Unity South Africa’s environmental and energy manager.
“It’s not like people expected that the current minister would be so powerful. Whether that is something we should have foreseen is neither here nor there,” Khambule said.
“What is important is that the ministries are held accountable for inaction and for actions that are not in line with the broader societal objectives and national interests.”
Mantashe, Khambule noted, has yet to release the updated Integrated Resource Plan, which was due at the end of March. Nor has he published an Integrated Energy Plan, which, according to the National Energy Act, the minister is required to develop and review on an annual basis.
The Integrated Energy Plan, which has been in the works since 2016, sets out the long-term prospects for South Africa’s energy sector.
The department did not respond to the Mail & Guardian’s questions about the delayed Integrated Resource Plan.
In February, Mantashe said it could not be completed until sectoral master plans — such as those for gas and liquid fuels — had been finalised.
But, according to Khambule, the DMRE’s biggest gaffe is that it has failed to create a degree of certainty about the country’s energy outlook to 2030 and beyond.
“We’ve got a plan that is supposed to be addressing the primary crisis. And we are not implementing it … up to the point where the president has to come up with his own version of an emergency plan.”
If the department, and Rama-phosa’s government more broadly, was doing what it ought to be doing, there would be no need for an electricity minister, Khambule said.
“Essentially, what we are saying is that, with Eskom sitting at DPE, [and] planning and procurement in DMRE, there is still a gap in the middle where electricity is not being taken care of.”
This conundrum underlies a far deeper problem for Ramaphosa’s government. With its political principles still not moving in the same direction, the path towards fixing South Africa’s energy crisis is as clear as mud.
“It’s about certainty and predictability,” Khambule said. “And we don’t have that, even if we do have a committee, or a structure or another added layer of bureaucracy … It’s his [Ramaphosa’s] style of governance, his style of leadership. But the situation South Africa finds itself in requires much more direct and precise decision-making.”
During a media briefing after the ANC’s NEC meeting last weekend, Ramaphosa denied reports that his electricity minister was at loggerheads with Mantashe and Gordhan over his powers.
The president said he had made the roles of each minister “absolutely clear” when he appointed Ramokgopa, adding: “There is no conflict, as far as I am concerned.”
The set-up, the president added, is a good one in some ways, because it enhances “integrated government”.
Presidency spokesperson Vincent Magwenya said this week that the process of delegating functions and powers to Ramokgopa was underway. Once concluded, an announcement would be made, he said.
Magwenya would not, however, comment on the specifics of the process and also would not be drawn to comment on Ramaphosa’s decision to merge the departments of mineral resources and energy and whether — four years later — the move had proved to be a good one.
Invitation to tender: Reference 83436782
The Southern African Development Community (SADC) Secretariat, the European Union (EU), and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) are jointly supporting the “Covid-19-relevant Medical and Pharmaceutical Products” (CMPP), the Antiretroviral (ARV) and Leather regional value-chain (RVC) projects. These RVCs are part of the Joint Action “Support towards Industrialization and the Productive Sectors in the SADC region” (SIPS) project. This project relates to the Leather Value Chain (LVC).
The enhancement of capacity for business operating systems and procedures are key aspects of the interventions under the Joint Action SIPS. The objective of this project is to support a leather association in Botswana on its administrative, technical (including a marketing strategy) and financial operations. The contractor is expected to identify available sources of income, propose and design a funding and business continuity model.
The Joint Action SIPS is therefore inviting interested service providers with their presence in the African Continent (Transregional) with experience in association and private sector development to apply for this national assignment. The selected service provider will enter into a contract with GIZ (Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH). Terms of Reference, Assessment Grid and further information can be found on the link below:
https://www.sadc.int/procurement-opportunities/giz-invitation-tender-advert-83436782-consultancy-development-value
Submission deadline
Kindly submit your bid, comprising (i) a technical offer and (ii) a price offer by 3pm 18 May 2023, by email submission at BW_Quotation@giz.de. Please note that tender bids received after the stipulated time and date will not be accepted.
Request for proposals: Development and piloting a training module on GRPBMEA
Invitation to tender: Reference 83437010
The Good Financial Governance in Africa programme promotes transparency and accountability in public financial management and is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), the European Union (EU) and the Finnish Government. Its objective is to foster Good Financial Governance in Africa and combat Illicit Financial Flows (IFF), more specifically that “change agents” in the areas of taxation, budgets, financial control, and legislative financial and budgetary supervision are empowered to support systemic changes in African countries.
The programme will be implemented together with National Treasury, Department of Women, Youth and People with Disabilities, National School of Government, Department of Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation and a Pan-African public finance network: the Collaborative Africa Budget Reform Initiative (CABRI).
The objective of the project is therefore to sensitize on gender mainstreaming and capacity building in Gender Responsive Planning, Budgeting, Monitoring, Evaluating and Auditing (GRPBMEA), which will pave the way and help create an enabling environment for related reforms, and to address the capacity gap by supporting the National Treasury of South Africa with developing and piloting a training module on GRPBMEA from July to 31 January 2024.
The Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) invites eligible and professional companies with local presence in the Africa region to participate in this tender. Tender documents are available for downloading until 12 May 2023 at the following link:
https://www.giz.de/en/worldwide/122200.html
Your proposal must be submitted to ZA_Quotation@giz.de by 19 May 2023. Please quote reference 83437010 when submitting the documentation. Late submissions will not be accepted.
Submit and get free exposure here: Showcase Your Business | Advertise Your Special Offers.
