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- Professor Job Mokgoro, prime minister of the North West province, testified at the Zondo commission on Thursday.
- He was the acting CEO in the prime minister’s office when he signed a R50 million payment to SA Express in March 2015.
- The provincial government accepted a proposal from SA Express for rand 110 million to provide air transport, even though another proposal was for only rand 4.7 million.
The decision to pay 50 million rand to SA Express by the North West province government was taken by the “decision makers” as a priority project and he was only the “postman” in the process, the Zondo commission on the state capture listened to Professor Job Mokgoro, the prime minister of the Northwest Province.
Mokgoro, who made his first appearance on the commission on Thursday, signed the payment in March 2015 when he was acting director general in the prime minister’s office.
The money came from a R132 million fund in the prime minister’s office, to which all provincial departments were asked to contribute their own budgets. The money went to projects, including those related to improving food security.
The North West government had identified SA Express as the preferred service provider in plans to revitalize air travel to and from the province, beginning with the Mahikeng-Johannesburg route.
The SA Express proposal would cost the Northwest provincial government R110 million to subsidize flights for the first year alone in what was supposed to be a five-year contract.
The second highest bid would have cost the provincial government just R4.7 million.
The only reason given for choosing SA Express, contained in a report from the provincial department of community safety and transportation management, was because it is a non-profit, state-owned enterprise (SOE).
Mokgoro said he remembered that it was one of the reasons given and admitted that it was pointless to opt for the SA Express proposal of R110 million over the proposal of R4.7 million.
Hindsight understanding
“Perhaps in hindsight I should have gone back to the exco to say that his decision is not informed, but that was not my space,” he told the commission.
Already in 2019, evidence was provided to the commission about a contract between SA Express and the government of the Northwest province regarding certain routes to be established between the province’s airports and other SA destinations.
The R 50 million payment was the first payment made to the state-owned regional airline.
In his affidavit, Mokgoro ties the payment to the projects mentioned in a inaugural state of the province address delivered in June 2014.
At the committee, however, he admitted that in that speech no mention was made of the developments at the Mahikeng and Pilanesberg airports, but of the overall development and rejuvenation of Mahikeng.
In August 2014, six airlines were invited to Sun City for presentations in the province. Mokgoro did not attend this meeting, although he was aware of it, he said.
When asked if he was aware of whether any bidding process was followed or if a bid request was issued before this meeting in August 2014, Mokgoro said it would have been the procurement department’s task to embark on that, and that one of the priority projects identified was development at the Mahikeng airport.
Advocate for evidence leader Kate Hofmeyr told Mokgoro that the first time a reference to airport resuscitation appears is not in the province’s state speech, but in an October 2014 planning document.
Mokgoro said it was aware of the procurement processes undertaken from a report from the procurement department to the executive council.
Previous evidence
Previous evidence in the commission alleged that an adequate process was not followed regarding the invitation to the airlines to make presentations and there was no invitation to tender.
Mokgoro testified that, in terms of procurement processes, departments are supposed to follow, to the letter, and under “normal circumstances”, the invitation to the six airlines would not have been in line with the procurement processes. He admitted during his testimony that an open tender should have been followed.
According to Mokgoro, from what he recalls, it is his understanding that in discussions between the provincial treasury and the provincial department of community security and transportation management, unused monies were identified, which could be used for plans to restore flights.
In his opinion, this was not contrary to the general policy objectives of the provincial government.
According to Hofmeyr, he has not seen any documents that record such discussions.
Mokgoro responded that, on a practical level, money was still part of the budgets of individual departments. They were just pooling the funds. He admitted that it was an “unusual arrangement.”
“The reason checklists are needed is to prevent a situation where people, for hidden reasons, want to overtake certain parties to get rich, right?” Hofmeyr asked Mokgoro.
To this, Mokgoro replied that he wished the exco was sitting where he was sitting.
“The Treasury had discussions with the department and the exco decided that the money should go there,” Mokgoro said. “The letter I received said it was for my urgent care and processing, so this shows that the decision makers had decided to make the funds available and I must authorize the payment.”
Instruction
For Mokgoro, the use of the instruction “process” meant that payment was authorized.
“I did not authorize the payment, I processed it,” he said.
What worries Hofmeyr is that the 50 million rand was taken out of earmarked funds for projects, such as security and infrastructure, and went into a government subsidy so that flights could reach the province.
Also on Thursday, Nontsasa Memela, former head of acquisitions for South African Airways Technical, was called back to complement her February testimony of this year.
This was after a supplier’s testimony in August of this year that Memela profited a sum of R2.5 million from a fraudulent deal. Memela denies the accusations.
