Tendering sleaze goes unabated
Mmegi Editor | Friday November 27, 2020 14:35
If we may jog the mind of a loyal Mmegi reader, not too long ago a Chinese firm was also barred from doing an infrastructure project as the company was deemed a security risk by the same DIS. China Jiangsu International (Botswana) to be precise, were paid P112 million compensation to walk away having done nothing on the project.
We ask this question: “Should it also follow that the local firm that won the SPEDU tender in Selebi-Phikwe quoted elsewhere in this publication be given a similar golden handshake and walk away?”
Don’t say we are being alarmist or dramatic. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Is Botswana money only suitable for foreigners? In our view, it’s a rhetorical question that has deep meaning.
Time and again, many Batswana firms are disqualified from lucrative tenders under some mysterious advice, which doesn’t form the Invitation To Tender (ITT) requirements. We know a local firm that has been barred from participating in government tenders under the pretext that the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime says the entity is a security risk. When the company asked for the advice in written form it (the advice) never came.
In one of the unreported High Court cases, Justice Michael Leburu had the following to say about the right to be heard prior to any adverse decision being taken: “Any adverse and prejudicial decision taken, without affording an interested party an opportunity to be heard, is an anathema to procedural fairness. Such a decision would be repugnant to due process and it cannot be permitted to stand. Fairness is a vital element of tender adjudication”.
In short, we are saying security agencies like DIS involve themselves in procurement not for genuine concerns but for their own ulterior motives. We cannot have public tenders decided in dark alleys. Surely not in 2020!
The Ministries and Public Procument and Asset Disposal Board just shiver once they hear DIS has an interest in whatever public tender. Thus, they literally drop everything and run away lest they entangle themselves and act against the interests of so called big men, the untouchables!
That is what is actually happening between some firms and some in leadership of the country. So pronounced are the dealings that one Asian firm is for one local kickback programme and another Asian company is for another group. This is regrettable!
And in the meantime the public is made to face elsewhere through sponsored public relation in national newspapers for corruption, whilst big men are helping themselves.
Today’s thought
“Without strong watchdog institutions, impunity becomes the very foundation upon which systems of corruption are built. And if impunity is not demolished, all efforts to bring an end to corruption are in vain. “
— Rigoberta Menchú