Pretoria - city manager Dr Moeketsi Mosola is mired in yet another controversial issue - he overturned expert recommendations to use a panel of service providers on a rotational basis for a multimillion rand tender.
This surfaced in the wake of last month’s adverse findings by the Auditor-General against Mosola's decision to award a multimillion rand tender to GladAfrica in November 2017.
In the latest controversy, Mosola overruled recommendations by a bid adjudication committee to appoint 39 companies for a tender related to public relations, communications and marketing activities. His stance to go against the recommendations has fuelled suspicions he wanted to appoint a single company like he did with the GladAfrica tender.
GladAfrica was appointed from a panel of 26 service providers amid complaints that the City should have used all of them instead of one company.
Asked for comment, Mosola said it was not in the character of the City to run its governance in the media.
“Suffice it to say all the City's internal policies and protocols pertaining to such matters are being strictly followed the City will communicate further should the need arise.”
The information regarding the tender is contained in documents dated January 24, seen by the Pretoria News.
In the documents Mosola rejected the idea of having multiple service providers taking turns to render services for the City. Insiders said the practice to use multiple companies had been in place for at least five years.
In his correspondence with the bid committee, Mosola said: “The City needs a full corporate tender for events, marketing and advertising, and communications.”
The committee cited that “all recommendations are in accordance with the municipality’s specification and conditions of tenderer and their tender”.
It also recommended that the group head of marketing and communication must manage the expenditure incurred for the duration of the contract within available approved budget.
It indicated that it had reached stage four of the evaluation criteria, which entailed the presentation by bidders scoring above the 70% threshold.
The score was accorded to companies based on administrative compliance, mandatory requirements and functionality criteria.
“After considering all relevant facts and aspects pertaining to this evaluation, the committee is of the opinion that the presentation, as outlined in the bid document, will not yield any demonstrable benefits to the evaluation process nor will it have any significance on the evaluation criteria as a minimum requirement,” the committee said.
It said the criteria set for evaluation of the presentation was “too subjective and can therefore not be used objectively for evaluation purposes in compliance to the constitutional principles of fairness and competitiveness”.
Successful bidders were to be part of the panel of public relations, communications and marketing to implement the City’s marketing and communication campaigns and projects.