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- Former MEC Mosebenzi Zwane of Free State Human Settlements returned to the state’s capture investigation on Monday to provide evidence on the Free State billion-rand housing project.
- The commission heard that while an open bidding process was underway, Zwane submitted a different list of contractors to exco for approval.
- Former Free State head of human settlements Mpho Mokoena previously said Zwane approached him with a list of 106 contractors to name.
Former Free State Human Settlements MEC Mosebenzi Zwane spent more than two hours trying to explain why he approved a list of contractors that included disqualified bidders, and some who had not bid at all, on the billion-dollar housing project. rand.
At one point, advocate for the leader of evidence Paul Pretorius SC said his evidence raised more questions than it answered.
Zwane testified for the second time before the commission on Monday.
The commission heard that while an open bidding process was underway, Zwane still brought a different list of contractors to exco for approval.
“That’s very strange,” said Supreme Court Vice President Raymond Zondo, who chairs the commission.
Between April 16 and July 28, 2010, an open bidding process was carried out under Zwane’s instructions.
However, on June 30, in the middle of a bidding process, Zwane went to obtain approval from exco with a different list of contractors, the commission heard.
Process
Zwane told Zondo that the open bidding process would be used to create a database that would be used for five years.
However, that process, as Pretorius put it, “eventually died an unnatural death” because it was canceled because the bid evaluation period had expired.
Pretorius said: “It is clear from the Treasury regulations under the Public Finance Management Act [PFMA] that for contracts of this size, you can’t just name it. You have to go through a process … it can’t work like that, Mr. Zwane. That’s the law, you know the PFMA and the regulations under the PFMA. “
READ: |Zwane appointed unknown contractors to build houses, former department head tells Zondo
“It seems to me that the only explanation is that the MEC together with exco had their own plan of who was going to build houses and [on] what base would be selected, “said Pretorius.
But Zwane said that when he got to the department, there was already a list that was used in 2009 and 2010, adding that he did not create the list.
He also said the list would be used in 2010 and 2011, until there was a dispute with the contractors after former Free State Prime Minister Ace Magashule said there would be bigger houses, but the money for the project remained. the same.
“So it was necessary to start following the process that would really give us a new list,” Zwane said.
List
During testimony by former head of human settlements Mpho Mokoena, he said that Zwane approached him with a list of about 106 contractors and asked him to name them.
Mokoena said that some of the contractors had never been used by the department before.
He also said he remembered asking Zwane why they awarded contracts to contractors they did not know.
“However, the MEC insisted that these were the contractors we should use,” Mokoena said at the time.
In 2010 and 2011, the people of the Free State were promised houses, yet many of those houses were never built, putting some people’s hopes to be dashed.
The investigation has heard that the department spent more than R500 million before any work was done.
The evidence revealed that the housing department made payments to contractors and vendors without any proof that houses were built.
ANALYSIS | The Rand Billion Housing Plan That Paved The Way For Future State Capture
He also heard that Zwane selected who should be part of the project, resulting in the department losing more than R400 million.
The money was spent after the national department threatened to transfer part of the Free State’s housing budget to “better-performing provinces.”
The Free State had spent less than the allocated money.
However, Zwane allegedly devised a plan to spend the money that led more than 100 contractors to get paid upfront before anything could be done.
There was no procurement process with respect to the contractors and the parties that supplied materials.
The hearing continues.