An almost half-a-billion-rand IT tender has bitterly pitted two ministers against each other, claiming the career of a director general.
Water Affairs Minister Edna Molewa and her Public Service and Administration counterpart Lindiwe Sisulu are hardly on speaking terms following their ugly spat on whether Molewa was right in invoking the law to award the R419 million IT contract to Business Connexion last month. This was after the extended contract with T-Systems was nearing an end.
The Sita Amendment Act requires that all state departments procure their IT services through the State Information Technology Agency (Sita). Sita is an agency of Public Service and Administration Department, with Sisulu as the political head.
But The Sunday Independent understands that Molewa went on her own after she was allegedly frustrated by Sita’s “incompetence” and “delays” to procure the IT services for her department. According to a senior official in her department - who could not be named due to “protocol” governing communication - the Sita-procured contract would have cost millions of rand more. This could not be independently verified.
Sita maintains that it is being used as a scapegoat, saying Molewa’s assertion is a “fallacy”.
On the other hand, Sisulu insists - according to two government officials who could not be named because of the sensitivity of the matter – that the same law invoked by Molewa states that the Water Affairs minister should have informed relevant departments, including Public Service and Administration.
Molewa was at first reluctant to speak to Sisulu because she believed the law was on her side until she was eventually advised to “courteously” write to her counterpart to inform her of the decision to ignore Sita.
But apparently Sisulu did not reply, according to the senior official in the Water Affairs Department.
Efforts to confirm this from Sisulu’s office were unsuccessful.
Sisulu ultimately wrote a scathing letter to Molewa, reminding her of the legal implications and her obligations, thus infuriating the Water Affairs minister.
This triggered a nasty stand-off, with the two ministers separately briefing the president, other cabinet colleagues and affected state bodies.
The auditor-general was asked to intervene, but Molewa refused to co-operate, accusing Terence Nombembe of interference and undermining her authority.
She refused to attend a meeting with Sisulu in which Nombembe was supposed to mediate.
Nombembe refused to comment, citing rules governing his office.
“If the matter you are enquiring about happens to be part of our audit work, it will be reported on in the normal audit procedures associated with our regularity audit,” said Nombembe’s spokesman Africa Boso.
Molewa apparently questioned why she was compelled to rely on Sita, which couldn’t assist her for months. The Water Affairs official pointed out that Sita was facing a corruption probe by the Special Investigating Unit.
“How do we expect to trust such an agency, no government department trusts it. Sisulu is just playing the power game because she believes she is a senior minister,” the official said.
Sisulu would not comment beyond saying that she was “investigating” the matter.
Water Affairs spokesman Mandla Mathebula dismissed the apparent dispute between Molewa and Sisulu.
“There was some interaction between the two ministers, but it is part of the engagement of parties involved in the tender. I am not aware of any dispute,” he said.
Caught in the tug-of-war between the two ministers was suspended Water Affairs director-general Maxwell Sirenya, who seemingly defied his own minister and effectively sided with Sisulu.
He refused to sign off what he described as an unlawful contract, citing Sisulu’s legal concerns.
But one of his colleagues at Water Affairs accused Sirenya of initially agreeing to be part of the process and chairing the adjudication committee only to refuse to award the contract to Business Connexion at the end of the process.
“This happened after he met Sita bosses and Public Administration officials,” alleged Sirenya’s colleague.
This peeved Molewa, who suspended him. One month after Sirenya’s suspension, the tender was awarded to Business Connexion. The IT company’s chief executive Benjamin Mophatlane, said: “We are not aware of the internal politics in the department. Our focus is on delivery.”
However, Sirenya stubbornly insisted that he has done nothing wrong, and continued going to the office. Molewa then instructed security guards to physically remove him from his office.
There was another ugly scene during the cabinet lekgotla at the end of January in which Sirenya insisted on attending. But Molewa brought her acting director-general, Trevor Balzer, with her.
The Presidency’s director-general Cassius Lubisi was asked to intervene and politely asked Sirenya to leave. Lubisi could not be reached for comment.
A source sympathetic to Sirenya said he was not charged for the tender fiasco but for water shortages in Ermelo and Mafikeng, an industrial dispute at the Olifants River and “other projects”.
Sirenya refused to comment on the matter.
“I have reported the matter to the relevant internal authorities that handle civil servants. It will be inappropriate of me to make any further statements,” he said.
“Although I made representations on the allegations against me, I have never had a response to that or a charge sheet served to me,” said Sirenya.
But a Water Affairs official said he refused to accept a charge sheet from human resources officials, who were accompanied by the police. This could not be confirmed.
He is due to appear before a disciplinary hearing this week, but it is believed Sisulu could negotiate for his redeployment.
Sirenya reported Molewa to the Public Protector, the Treasury, the Presidency and had lodged a grievance procedure with the Public Service Commission, a watchdog body.
But Molewa refused to sign the grievance form.
The commission spokesman Humphrey Ramafoko confirmed that a grievance from “the former director-general” would be dealt with.
Public Protector Thuli Madonsela also confirmed that they had received Sirenya’s complaints.
Spokeswoman Kgalalelo Masibi said Madonsela would decide on Tuesday whether to investigate Sirenya’s claims.
Presidential spokesman Mac Maharaj said he was not aware of the dispute between the ministers or complaints from Sirenya to the Presidency. “If there are real issues there, they will be dealt with through the proper processes,” said Maharaj.
Treasury spokeswoman Phumza Macanda said they don’t comment on ongoing investigations.
Sita has called on the auditor-general to investigate the matter.
Agency spokeswoman Anthea Summers said: “It is a fallacy that Sita failed to procure an IT solution for (the Department of Water Affairs). Sita is currently waiting for a report from the auditor-general into this matter,” she said.
Summers said the department had asked the agency to issue a tender on their behalf.
Sita then put forward a proposal on how Water Affairs’s needs could be met, she said.
“This was done on the back of a series of meetings and a trail of correspondence between the two institutions,” Summers said.
After the department received the proposal from Sita, it initially accepted it, with the condition that Water Affairs’s adjudication committee agreed to the proposal.
But, said Summers, Sita was later informed that the matter was put on hold due to a high level ministerial review of the department’s IT services.
“Sita was then invited to a meeting with (the department) on September 1, 2011 and in this meeting Sita was informed that the department was no longer interested in the proposal that Sita had put forward,” she told The Sunday Independent.
“On April 5 (last year) it came to Sita’s attention that the department had published the same tender for IT services, that it had initially approached Sita for. In the same month Sita also wrote to the Department of Water Affairs indicating that it was in transgression of the Sita Act. Subsequent to this, numerous meetings were held in January (this year), to resolve this matter - but no agreement was reached,” Summers said.
However, the Water Affairs official insists that Sita employees were unprofessional, “not acknowledging emails”, losing documents and using underhand methods to frustrate Molewa. - Sunday Independent