Section 36 history repeats

IT SEEMS the spectre of Section 36 contracts is back to haunt the eThekwini Municipality, despite a sordid history of rampant abuse of the process.

Section 36 of the supply chain management rules allows a municipality to bypass normal procedures to award a contract without going through the tender process in order to get something done quickly in an emergency.

A municipality might be forgiven for invoking Section 36 after a flood when it is necessary to procure items in a hurry to alleviate the plight of those affected.

In eThekwini, the latest such contract to be flagged is for spares for the municipal bus fleet, which can hardly be deemed an emergency.

Opposition councillors expressed concern that the matter had not come to them for perusal before being approved. Municipal manager Sipho Nzuza and treasurer Krish Kumar replied that the decision to award a Section 36 contract belonged to staff, not politicians, and that the responsible staff would be held accountable if there was evidence of wrongdoing.

Given the history of abuse of Section 36 in eThekwini (remember the Mpisanes?), this is hardly comforting. Allowing staff to award contracts and then having councillors provide oversight is not just putting the cart before the horse, but allowing the cart to run wild, destroying everything in its path, and then hitching it to the horse to bring it under control.

It is in the municipality’s – and ratepayers’ – best interests for councillors to scrutinise all Section 36 contracts before they are awarded, to ensure that an emergency indeed exists, and that municipal staff are not handing out work to friends and family.