Nod for suspensions
APPROVAL: ACTIONSA APPLAUDS MOVE TO ACT AGAINST FIVE OFFICIALS Senior managers guilty on one charge in irregular award of Rooiwal tender.
In Tshwane, ActionSA has approved of city manager Johann Mettler’s recent move to place five municipal officials on precautionary suspension regarding the Rooiwal tender awarded to Blackhead Consulting.
Their suspension came after a year-long internal disciplinary process, which ended with them being found guilty on one of the four charges against them.
The city noted it issued intended suspension letters to the five officials on Wednesday, and allowed them the chance to present their case against suspension.
The city stated: “A final determination was made [on Friday] to place them on precautionary suspension with full pay. The officials were found not guilty on three charges, but were found guilty on one charge and the sanction was suspension for one month without pay.”
But it opposed the disciplinary process outcome and intends to appeal the decision in the Labour Court.
“The city is of the view that their continued presence at the workplace will be detrimental to the stability of the municipality,” it said.
Mettler said the officials would remain suspended, pending a review of the court’s ruling.
“The officials are senior employees of the municipality and the majority of them on the bid evaluation committee (BEC) are engineers and ought to have applied themselves properly when evaluating the tender regarding the belt pressers,” Mettler said.
Tshwane Metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba said the officials were charged with gross negligence and dereliction of duty which resulted in breaches of legislation, policies and codes of conduct.
Bokaba said they faced charges of “allowing Blackhead Consulting to progress to the next stage of the evaluation without being registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB) and also without having the required CIDB 9CE or 9ME”.
“The inclusion of Blackhead Consulting services to render professional services in the circumstances where the city had already appointed a company to render professional services” made the city incur costs of R10 999 786.96.
“Evaluating the winning bidder on 1.4m belt presses width when the specification required 2m width,” he added.
The R292 million tender in
Their presence will be detrimental to the municipality
2019 was awarded to owner and director of Blackhead Consulting Edwin Sodi and NJR projects in partnership with CMS Water Engineering, where they did 60% of the work despite receiving full payment for the project.
Blackhead Consulting was under investigation by the Special Investigating Unit for incomplete upgrades and refurbishments to Tshwane’s Rooiwal Waste Water Treatment Plant.
GroundUp reported that national Treasury has yet to blacklist Blackhead Consulting from doing business with the state, after the city asked Treasury to list it as a restricted supplier.
This after its failure to upgrade the water treatment works, which led to 29 people dying after a cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal.
ActionSA welcomed the suspension of the officials and said that it came at a crucial time.
“These projects are vital in ensuring the provision of clean water to the community of Hammanskraal,” ActionSA said.