Johannesburg - Airports Company SA (Acsa) suspended three senior managers yesterday amid allegations of bribery, corruption and unfair practices within its supply chain management.
However, Acsa said it would not suspended chief executive Bongani Maseko, who would continue in his role. The board announced its decision to suspended procurement manager Percy Sithole, general manager for regional airports Jabulani Khambule and legal counsel Bongani Machobane with immediate effect.
The board took a decision not to suspend Maseko, who would continue in his role while the disciplinary process unfolded. It would continue with further investigations, the company said.
Irregularities
The forensic report into irregularities in Acsa’s supply chain management was conducted by Dr VS Mncube Consulting on behalf of the Acsa board, and presented to the board in August.
It investigated allegations that tender flaws had led to Exclusive Books losing the OR Tambo International Airport and Cape Town International Airport tenders.
It also investigated how City Lodge was awarded tenders for the construction and operation of 3-star hotels in OR Tambo International Airport, the Bloemfontein Airport and Port Elizabeth Airport despite them failing to meet requirements specified in the Request For Proposal documentation and tender advert.
City Lodge also allegedly failed to submit their tender documentation within the deadline on November 16, 2007, at noon.
Investigation also probed how Acsa awarded black-owned Tswelokgotso Trading Enterprises (TTE with emergency grass-cutting and vegetation contracts plus the runways, taxiways, aprons and road surfaces work without a tender process.
The report stated that both tenders involved the discontinuation of the current service providers and emergency issuing to TTE.
“One of the alleged cancellations was due to the tax clearance having expired, which we have not performed any procedure to prove or disprove the allegations. We could not find evidence that a proper process of emergency appointments was followed with TTE, there are no records found so far of the other companies who competed against TTE during the emergency appointments,” the report read.
The report found Acsa did not have a clearly defined Enterprise Development Policy in terms of its Cleaning Staff Empowerment Tender, which was aimed at providing staff the opportunity to be part of an empowerment initiative.
It was found that two out of the five companies appointed were not evaluated by Acsa, and were not on the shortlisted companies that presented their proposals to the company.
The investigation found Maseko’s failure to address the written complaint of Exclusive Books despite the matter being referred to his office by the company secretariat on or about July 7, 2015, thereby exposing Acsa to reputational and possibly litigation risk.
He also did not take action despite the report by Deloitte into the irregular award of hotel development to City Lodge. It also found Machobane to be responsible for potential wasteful and fruitless litigation expenditure, and ignoring tender irregularities of material nature as raised on the Exclusive Books Review Applications.
In terms of recommendations, the report found that Sithole, Khambule and Machobane could be liable for a number of misconduct actions as articulated in the Cleaning Staff Empowerment Tender finding.
It said Sithole would be probed for contracts awarded to TTE without due processes and that the probability of once corrupt relationship between Sithole, Machobane and TTE needed further investigation.
It said Maseko and Machobane needed to be further investigated for settling R7.5 million out of the invoice of R35.2m despite the fact that TTE was not entitled to a payment.
BUSINESS REPORT