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The Eastern Cape Department of Education (ECDoE) has been prohibited from continuing a controversial R500 million contract to supply 55,000 rented tablets to enrollment students in the province, pending the hearing of a request for an urgent review of all contract.
The three-year lease, to the politically connected Sizwe Africa IT Group, made headlines and was greeted with outrage earlier this year.
This was after it emerged that the department, using treasury regulations, had entered into a lease for IT products and services between the departments of economic development, environmental affairs and tourism (Dedeat) and Sizwe.
The only difference was that it went from R160 million in Dedeat to R537.4 million in ECDoE, and had included MTN, which would supply data SIM cards that would be supplemented with 4 gigabytes of data per month for 36 months.
Sizwe is a Sekunjalo subsidiary of media baron Iqbal Surve and is headed by former ANC chaplain Reverend Vukil Mehana. Mehana was Chairman of the Board of the Community Scheme Ombud Service at the time she made an investment of R80 million in VBS Mutual Bank.
The request had been submitted by the State Information Technology Agency (Sita), which alleged that both contracts were illegal and should have been made through them under the terms of the Sita Law.
Sita is the state designated information technology and all procurement for state bodies, with the exception of state entities, is done through them.
Last week, Eastern Cape Superior Court Judge Buyiswa Majiki issued an order prohibiting the department, the second defendant, from making any payments on the contract, and the two companies from providing further services.
This would be while listening to an urgent request to review and void both contracts.
Majiki, however, rejected part of the request that also sought to prohibit the contract of the first defendant Dedeat, saying that the interdiction at this time would affect the provision of the service because the equipment has already been delivered.
“In my opinion, the public interest and the prospects for successful review are in favor of granting the injunction in the circumstances of the second defendant’s contract. There was no performance at the most critical moment of the state of disaster, regardless of the fact that R123 million in favor of the fourth respondent (Sizwe) were approved on May 7, 2020 ”, he added.
At the time, the contact was a month old and could only have cost R11 million.
The ECDoE had argued that intercepting the tender would trample on the right to education of minors of school age, particularly those enrolled whose last year had been severely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In his summary, Majiki noted that it was submitted that the ECDoE had engaged both Sizwe IT and the MTN network in April before having satisfied the provincial treasury, which had issued conditional support a month earlier.
The contract was signed in April, but signed by General Superintendent Themba Kojana dated March 27, 2020, despite the last written permission being issued on June 24.
The tablets were delivered between June and September.
Majiki also summarized that Sita had not supported deviation from the normal procurement process and wanted the entire process to go through an open bidding process.
“I agree with the applicant that what is being intercepted is the continuation of the contracts and related payments, without compliance with the Law in cases where public funds are involved. The questions in it revolve around the legality of the transactions in which there was a legal breach in the conclusion of the contracts and not the weight of the policy behind the conclusion of the transaction ”, he said.
The tender has been heavily criticized by stakeholders in the province, with many saying the state was wasting money renting tablets for more than 400 million rand rather than buying them for a much cheaper price.
The costs of the contract are R404.8 million for tablets and data, while R133.4 million are for virtual classrooms that will be recorded by specially designed study teachers where educators would.
Around R123 million described as unaccounted for has already been spent so far.
The member of the Democratic Alliance of the provincial legislature Yusuf Cassim, who is also the party’s spokesman for education, filed a complaint for a criminal investigation into the tender.
At that time, he was quoted as saying: “At the heart of the matter is the award of a contract without the matter going out to contract.”
Cassim also said that the tablets could have been purchased at a fraction of the price.
The Special Investigation Unit was previously reported to be investigating the contract as part of its investigation into Covid-19 spending.
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