Cape Town - The Competition Tribunal has heard a second Covid-19 public procurement case, which concerned the buying of masks by the police.
The case, which is expected to continue this morning, involved Tsutsumani Business Enterprises CC, one of the companies accused of charging excessive prices for 500 000 three-ply surgical face masks to the SA Police Service for its employees in April last year.
The matter was referred for prosecution after the Competition Commission accused Tsutsumani of excessive pricing, among other contraventions of the Competition Act.
In papers before the tribunal, the commission said the SAPS, given the central role it was to play in the control of the Covid-19 pandemic, was under pressure at the time to acquire personal protective equipment (PPE) for its employees as quickly as possible.
“The police were stuck with only the suppliers who responded to the request for quotes (RFQ), regardless of the price,” said the commission.
Siyabulela Makunga, spokesperson for the commission, said Tsutsumani was one of 18 suppliers contracted to supply the police with masks, and the police had wanted to procure a total of 10 million masks at the time.
Tsutsumani denied the allegations of excessive pricing.
According to Makunga, the police procured 500 000 surgical face masks from Tsutsumani at R32.50 per mask, and Tsutsumani earned a gross mark-up of 87% on the transaction, which the commission deemed excessive.
According to the commission, the first case involving PPE was against BlueCollar Occupational Health (Pty) Ltd and Ateltico Investments (Pty) Ltd.
Makhunga said in the BlueCollar and Ateltico matter, in March last year, BlueCollar responded to the police’s RFQ for the supply of bulk hand sanitiser with 10 000 25Lt containers at a price of R3 550 per container with a gross mark-up of 123%, a price that the commission found to be excessive.
Cape Argus