Exposed: Zimbabwe’s parastatals
GOVERNMENT is losing millions of dollars through payments to a company called Twenty Third Century Systems (TTCS), a digital transformation solutions provider that is failing to complete jobs that public entities would have contracted it to do.
This was revealed during investigations by The Standard, working in collaboration with Information for Development Trust, a non-governmental organisation that supports journalists to probe bad governance and corruption.
TTCS has been securing contracts for systems, applications and products (SAP), software implementations and upgrades from government departments, but has failed to deliver despite being paid in full.
This is despite the fact that SAP Africa (Pty) Limited, a subsidiary of the giant German business outfit, cancelled its partnership with TTCS in 2019 over undisclosed reasons, but it is widely suspected that the move was linked to malfeasance.
Without the partnership, it means TTCS cannot secure licences required when companies want to implement SAP or expand their number of users.
However, several parastatals are still contracting TTCS, in some cases without going to tender, investigations revealed.
And, to add to the mystery, several of the state-owned entities are still struggling to have the projects completed, three years after the expiry of the contracts.
The exact financial losses could not be immediately ascertained, but sources estimated them to run into millions.
Among the companies that have fallen victim to the skewed contracts are Zimbabwe National Road Authority (Zinara), Central Mechanical Equipment Department (CMED), Grain Marketing Board (GMB) and National Social Security Authority (NSSA).
The Insurance and Pensions Commission (IPEC), Civil Aviation Authority of Zimbabwe (Caaz) and the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) are also among the parastatals that are battling to have TTCS complete SAP system implementations and upgrades on expired contracts.
TTCS was awarded a two-year SAP implementation contract by GMB in November 2017.
A December 12, 2019 letter to TTCS by GMB listed a plethora of outstanding jobs after the expiry of the contract, among them the implementation of role matrix configuration, monthly depreciation run, treasury module, payroll module, quality management, the HCM module and hardware for DRP Site.
“Please, take note that the SAP implementation contract between Grain Marketing Board and yourselves expired on November 8, 2019 in terms of Clause 2.11 of the same,” part of the letter to TTCS by GMB finance manager, one C Gutsa, read.
“Be that as it may, we have noted with great concern that there remains numerous outstanding works as listed hereunder.”
GMB corporate communications officer Joseph Katete did not respond to questions emailed to him more than a week ago despite follow-ups.
Zinara also awarded an SAP database migration contract to TTCS and minutes from the roads management agency’s meeting with TTCS showed that, three years on, there was still a lot of outstanding work to be done, yet the contract had already expired.
These included the failure by TTCS to avail to the roads agency
SAP licences even though Zinara had already paid.
The failure to produce the licences seem linked to the cancellation of the contract between SAP and TTCS.
Zinara spokesperson Tendai Mugabe acknowledged that the agency was seized with the problems and was doing all it could to rectify them.
“Those are legacy issues and Zi