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By Rapula Moatshe 
9h ago
THE FIGHT between the city of Tshwane and service providers over non-payment of meals services to the homeless during the lockdown took a dramatic turn yesterday when a woman took off her clothes to vent her frustration.
The woman was part of a group of service providers who came uninvited to a press conference organized by Chief Administrator Mpho Nawa to shed light on alleged corruption in contracting for the service.
Some service providers and at least 10 city officials have been linked to collusion during the process to award contracts to feed around 18,000 people who were housed in 24 temporary shelters set up by the local government to slow the spread of the coronavirus.
Service providers are under fire for allegedly inflating prices with initial bills from 15 service providers amounting to more than R19 million. Mavela Dlamini, former acting city manager, pointed out the non-compliance with Supply Chain Management (SCM) processes and launched an investigation.
For the past five months, service providers say the City has refused to pay them for the food they provided.
Minutes before the briefing began, some had already taken seats in a room reserved for the event. Subway police were called in to expel the group. However, the service providers reacted angrily, saying that anyone who dared to touch them did so at their own risk.
A woman protested against the presence of the subway police by stripping naked in full view of the journalists and everyone present.
The police eventually left the scene and the journalists were transferred to another location for the briefing.
At the briefing, Nawa said the City was not insensitive to the plight of catering companies. However, she said that the municipality would not pay them without first validating the type of invoices they had submitted for catering services.
This was part of the investigation into the alleged collusion between municipal officials and themselves during the hiring stage.
During the briefing, it emerged that the head of supply chain management had been suspended for failing to issue purchase orders to service providers.
The city’s audit executive, Moeketsi Ntsimane, explained: “Any service provider would receive a purchase order from the city. At the same time, a service provider would have received an appointment letter indicating the type of service to be provided and the price to pay ”.
He said other service providers were unable to prove that they had performed services on behalf of the City. “We are finalizing the investigations. We are collaborating with the Special Investigation Unit (SIU) and the Hawks regarding financial spending related to Covid-19, ”said Ntsimane.
Nawa said that in June, Dlamini was approached by caterers who claimed to have provided food at Tshwane shelters for the homeless during the shutdown. Initial invoices for 15 suppliers amounted to R19 793 896.
Dlamini then resigned. Nawa said the current acting city manager, Mmaseabata Mutlaneng, had also met with caterers to discuss their concerns.
“This meeting prompted an instruction to the internal forensic investigation team to pay special attention to the validity of the invoices. The preliminary investigation uncovered discrepancies regarding the number of beneficiaries served versus the actual number who stayed in shelters.
“The investigation also looked at additional and often exorbitant fees, such as delivery, labor and wait services,” Nawa said.
Mutlaneng said administrators did not know about the service providers until they brought the matter to Dlamini’s attention in June.
According to her, the city had had the impression that the feeding of the homeless in the shelters would be the responsibility of the Department of Social Development. “In many reports where the command council had sat week after week throughout that period, we were not aware that there was a specific requirement for the catering service until the matter was reported to Mavela in June,” Mutlaneng said.
He added that at that time there were many non-profit organizations offering food packages and that some shelters were fed by the local Muslim community.
The service providers were in the City’s database and were asked by email to provide services. She said they were asked by one of the officials to provide services without going through a proper supply chain management process to obtain a purchase order that reflects the type of service expected of them and its cost.
Of the 34 service providers, the City was in the process of paying eight whose information could be validated, Mutlaneng said. “We had to ask some of them to provide an affidavit as a form of confirmation that they had provided goods and services on behalf of the City.”
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