Transparency, automation and oversight dominate eThekwini tender debate

Shameen Thakur-Rajbansi of Minority Front (MF), said the entire tender system in the eThekwini municipality needed to be revised.

"We must ensure that the tender system is accessible to the public. It had been happening behind closed doors for years. It is high time for the public to see what is happening with their money" she said.

She suggested a Metro TV where everything happening in the city would be televised on it including the awarding of tenders. 

"The public needs to know who received the tender and how she/he got it. The public also needs to know how the tender process was carried out. The tender process must be transparent" she said. 

Thabani Nyawose (ANC), said the tender system act allowed municipalities to have a committee that deals with procurement of tenders. 

"We are going to ensure that an act is followed to avoid the issue of corruption and lack of service delivery to our communities," said Nyawose.

He said in their term of office they had dismissed more than 300 officials and some resigned due to corruption in the tender system. 

Hlengiwe Mkhaliphi (EFF), said they would scrap the entire tender system after taking the helm in the city, saying it was crippling the economy and service delivery. 

"Tenders also create corruption. You cannot have one man awarded with a tender worth R20 million for fixing infrastructure, that man takes R18 million and puts it in his pocket to go and galavant in Dubai for six months. The same man gives R2 million to a contractor to fix the infrastructure, and you find that contractor did not do the job. The person who suffers from that is the taxpayer," she said. 

Mkhaliphi said people must be directly employed from the communities to the municipality. 

"We will capacitate the municipality to ensure that people are directly employed from the communities by the municipality. There are cases of corruption where a company was supposed to give a security guard an amount of R18,500, but it paid R3,500 instead. The company ended up making more profit," she added.

Selvan Govender (IFP), believes that the allocation of tenders must be made public to avoid corruption.

"What matters most is what you do after allocating a tender to a contractor. I think doing follow ups on the contractor is crucial. There is a need to amend the budget and ensure that contractors received tenders know their work," he said 

Govender said companies doing poor work would be blacklisted.

"This issue must stop because it is killing our economy. Millions of rand are missing because of corruption from the tender system," he said. 

Alicia Kissoon (DA), said the current tender system in eThekwini was not transparent.

"We will ensure that the tender system is transparent. The current system makes it clear that there is no access of tender to the man on the street, and it is manipulated by people," said Kissoon.

She said they would introduce an an automated system, where all people are allowed to get to the tender system with no interference from a human. 

"The automated system is working and it has been tested in various sectors. We are against the current tender system because it creates more corruption," added Kissoon.

Thami Mkhize (MKP), said they would also scrap the tender system.

"We will engage the services of competent and qualified engineers, we will also employ the artisans, and have decentralized system that benefits the public at large not certain individuals," he said 

Zwakele Mncwango of ActionSA, said: "When it comes to the tender process, we believe that there will be transparency during a tender bid to avoid corruption. We will need to know what criteria was followed when a company received a tender, and we will minimise political interference in the awarding of tenders," said Mncwango.

He said they would ensure that lifestyle audits were conducted on all officials and politicians in the city. 

Asad Gaffar (ERPM), said they had sufficient legislation to govern the tender process.

"The registration needs to be used. What matters most is how we manage tenders. We make sure that the tender process is improved and everyone has access to it," said Gaffar.

He added they would ensure that the municipal manager was in compliance with the financial management act.