P27 million COVID tender controversy
A single mask cost P600
Founder and director of Hutrex Group Pty Ltd Reabetswe Barwabatsile, is among people fingered for having unduly benefited from Covid-19 tenders.
The young man opened up in an interview with The Midweek Sun on what transpired regarding the controversial P27 million tender and allegations of corruption, as well as his links to government and the ruling Botswana Democratic Party leadership.
According to Barwabatsile, it all started with an invitation to tender from the Covid-19 task force.
“We received an invitation to tender just like any other company. I think up to 38 companies responded to the tender. We were never directly appointed as some people have been saying on social media.
“We competed with 38 other companies and won fair and square.
We have been doing business for seven years now and always deliver”, Barwabatsile said.
According to Barwabatsile, while they indeed may have tendered and won, the big argument has been that P27 million for 40 000 masks seems an overkill, meaning the taxpayer had to fork out around P600 per mask which brought about allegations of corruption.
Barwabatsile asserted that there was nothing untoward with the award, and that people need to know that the tender was done at a time when quantities demanded within a particular timeframe could only be sourced directly from China.
He explained that this was also at a time of lockdowns and incessant stop and starts for business. Given the quantities, delivery timeframes and travel restrictions, their chartered aircraft transportation charges alone ran into millions.
“I do not think people actually know that taxes, interests on cash being invested, handling fees and transportation of goods during the time when the world was virtually locked down were quite expensive, and so were the prices of the goods.
“It is a basic economics rule that when demand is high and goods are in short supply their prices go much higher than they would normally be”, he argued.
Barwabatsile denied alle
gations of corruption and nepotism even though some reports had said his father and the colonel in charge of procurement at the task force had both been soldiers at some point.
He said he did not even know that they worked together, as the military is a big institution. All he knows is that they submitted a bid considering the cost of bringing goods into the country in June 2020.
As far as they know, they did not act in a corrupt manner, but that they made bids for different items but only got awarded one as the tender
was split across different companies.
He noted that Covid-19 remains a sore spot for government, adding that there have been accusations and counter accusations of direct appointment to friends of those in positions of power and to their fronting allies.
It remains to be seen whether parliament will institute an inquest into mismanagement of Covid-19 funds.
Barwabatsile said his company exists to be of service to the nation. “As the company we also started manufacturing masks and different entities liked our work”.