Ncojane P1.5 billion water tender blocked despite CoA approval
Innocent Selatlhwa | Friday May 15, 2026 11:29
On 27 March 2026, the Court of Appeal (CoA) brought down the curtain on a long-running dispute over one of the country’s largest water-supply tenders. It dismissed an appeal brought by two Chinese-owned construction giants and confirmed that the P1.5 billion Ncojane Water Supply Works contract, which will deliver water to villages across Charleshill (Formerly Ghanzi South) and Kgalagadi North Constituencies, belongs to a 100% citizen-owned bidder, Tawana Joint Venture.
More than six weeks later, the contract has still not been signed. As if that is not enough frustration for the contractors, three different bodies of the State now appear to be pulling in the same direction: away from compliance with the Court’s order.
The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC), which the contractors accuse of having sat on a referral for over two years involving the very official (Former Permanent Secretary Dr Kekgonne Baipoledi) who tried to force the tender onto the Chinese bidders, has instructed the Ministry to suspend the procurement. The Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) is said to have authorised that suspension.
The tender- POU/MLWA/DTS/NCOJANE WATER SUPPLY WORKS/0158/09102023 — was advertised late 2023 for the design and construction of more than 800 kilometres of pipework, boreholes, a water-treatment plant, pumping stations and access roads. The Court of Appeal noted that, at over P1.5 billion, the project ranks among the Government’s ninth-largest expenditure allocations, and amounts to more than half the Ministry’s entire development budget.
Of the ten initial bids, only two survived preliminary screening. They were Tawana JV, a 100% citizen-owned joint venture comprising G4 Civils (Pty) Ltd, Landmark Projects (Pty) Ltd and Asphalt Botswana (Pty) Ltd and CCECC/ZGEC, a joint venture of the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation and Zhong Gan Engineering & Construction Corporation Botswana (Pty) Ltd.
At the technical evaluation stage, Tawana JV scored 92.9%. CCECC/ZGEC failed the mandatory sub-minimum on its Project Management Plan and was disqualified by the evaluation committee.
According to the Court of Appeal’s recital of the Tribunal’s findings, the then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Lands and Water Affairs, Dr Baipoledi, baulked, directed a re-evaluation, and, when the evaluation committee returned with the same conclusion, overruled it and ordered the financials of both bidders to be opened to allow for further competition. When the financial assessment came in, Tawana JV’s bid was almost a quarter-billion Pula cheaper than CCECC/ZGEC’s. The committee unanimously recommended that the tender be awarded to Tawana JV. The Accounting Officer, in the Tribunal’s words, 'did the opposite': he disqualified Tawana JV and, on 3 October 2024, awarded the tender to the Chinese JV.
Tawana JV took the matter to the Public Procurement Tribunal. The Tribunal cancelled the tender on 19 November 2024. Tawana JV then appealed to the High Court, which, on 24 February 2025, through Justice Zein Kebonang substituted Tawana JV as the successful bidder. The Chinese consortium and the Ministry both sought leave to appeal. The High Court refused the Ministry leave to appeal. CCECC/ZGEC alone proceeded to the Court of Appeal and lost.
The Court of Appeal recorded the Tribunal’s description of the Ministry’s conduct as 'egregious'. The Tribunal found that the Ministry deliberately withheld material facts known only to it, supplied accounts 'lacking candour', 'perpetuated a fallacy in its calculations', and was 'actively working to conceal a scheme to favour CCECC/ZGEC'. It concluded that Dr. Baipoledi was 'less than candid, despite taking an oath', his motive being 'to conceal the outcome', that he made 'a brazenly false claim about the evaluation report', and that he 'catapulted' the Chinese bidder into financial evaluation 'under the pretext of engendering competition', while remaining 'blind to a 100% citizen contractor, namely Tawana'.
The Tribunal invoked Regulation 17 of the Public Procurement (Tribunal) Regulations and referred the matter to the DCEC. That referral was made in November 2024. By May 2025, in separate proceedings reported in the press, the State’s own counsel, Abel Modimo, had publicly conceded that Dr Baipoledi’s conduct was 'so bad and so improper' that it warranted cancellation of the tender; that allegations of misconduct and bias against him were valid; that the two Chinese companies did not meet the technical threshold and should have been disqualified; and that 'only Tawana Joint Venture qualified for the award'. State Counsel further told the Court that those concessions were 'now under investigation by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime'.
On 27 March 2026, the Court of Appeal dismissed CCECC/ZGEC’s appeal in its entirety. The order requiring the Accounting Officer to procure contract placement within 21 days became final and binding on the Ministry.
The 21 days came and went. The Ministry produced no signed contract. Instead, on 28 April 2026, it issued a 'Letter of Acceptance' through Deputy Permanent Secretary Nchidzi Mmolawa. According to the documents, a court ordered the placement of a contract, and the Ministry produced an offer to talk about producing a contract.
On 6 May 2026, Tawana JV filed a contempt of court application in the High Court, citing the Accounting Officer, two Deputy Permanent Secretaries (including Mmolawa) and the Attorney General as respondents.
According to court documents, within twenty-four hours of service, on 7 May 2026, Mmolawa wrote again to Tawana JV. This time, he announced that the Ministry had received an instruction from the DCEC to suspend the procurement process pending investigations, and that the DCEC had been granted 'written authority' by the PPRA under section 107(4) of the Public Procurement Act, 2021, to do so.
On behalf of his clients, Attorney Tebogo Tladi of Jeremiah Tladi and Co. laments that the DCEC instruction and the PPRA written authority have not been produced. “The terms of either document, the date of either document, and the identity of the persons being investigated have not been disclosed. What has been produced is an instruction sufficient, in the Ministry’s reading, to suspend the operation of a Court of Appeal judgment,” they argue.
Tawana JV’s lawyers, Jeremiah Tladi & Co, put the matter shortly in their letter to the Director General of the DCEC on 7 May 2026: 'No statutory body, including DCEC, has the power in law to suspend, override, or frustrate the operation of a subsisting High Court order confirmed on appeal.' Their letter to the Chief Executive Officer of the PPRA, also of 7 May 2026, is in materially the same terms.
The attorneys lament that the residual networks that engineered the original 2024 award to CCECC/ZGEC could remain operational within the Ministry, and that those networks have now succeeded in enlisting the very oversight bodies whose constitutional task is to root them out.
As far back as 2020, the Government itself acknowledged that 'implementation of the Ncojane Wellfields-Kgalagadi North water supply project was the major solution to the region’s water supply problem', citing legal disputes as the principal cause of delay. Six years later, those same legal disputes have been finally resolved by Botswana's highest court, in favour of a citizen contractor, at a price almost a quarter-billion Pula lower than the foreign bid. And the people of Charleshill and Kgalagadi North are still waiting for water.
According to Tladi, the DCEC has been asked, in writing, whether it issued the instruction relied upon by the Ministry; whether it was aware of the subsisting court orders when it did so; and whether it intends to withdraw the instruction. The PPRA has been asked, in writing, whether it issued the section 107(4) authority; whether it was aware of the subsisting court orders when it did so; whether it received any application or representation from the DCEC, the Ministry or the Attorney General before doing so; and whether it intends to withdraw the authority.
Tawana JV has put them on notice that they will be joined as respondents in the pending contempt of court proceedings, and that the named officials within them will be cited for criminal contempt if their conduct is shown to be a continuing direction or inducement of non-compliance with the orders of the High Court and the Court of Appeal.
Tshiamo Rantao of Rantao Attorneys, on behalf of PPRA, has since responded to a letter from Tawana, stating that the Authority did, in fact, give consent in terms of Section 107(4) of the Public Procurement Act.
“The aforementioned consent was given on the basis of a request made by the DCEC in its capacity as the oversight agency (and of course discharging the obligations under the Corruption and Economic Crimes Act), which request was made on or around 27 April 2026,” he said. Rantao states that the consent was correctly granted in the circumstances and that PPRA does not intend to withdraw or qualify its consent. “In that regard, the consent does not direct or induce non - compliance with binding Court Orders,” he states.
He said the consent is proper as it pertains to an investigation whose findings were made outside the scope of the judgements and long after the judgements were handed down. “In light of the investigations of the matter by the DCEC, it is not open to our Client to provide you with the documentation requested or any further information which remains confidential during the period of investigation,” he wrote.
Meanwhile, this publication attempted to engage Assistant Minister Motsamai Motsamai on the matter. He said he was clueless about the latest development. “I have been engaging people in my constituency, telling them that water could come to them soon as the matter was solved in the courts. It would be disappointing if they have to wait again. I will find out what the problem could be,” he said. For his part, Minister Onneetse Ramogapi said he was also not aware of the matter in its entirety, stating that he has only been briefed and cannot intere
The contempt matter will be heard by Justice Tapiwa Kganyago of the Gaborone High Court next month (June).