Ramaotwana made efforts to raise the issue at yesterday's full council meeting but other councillors thwarted them (Ramaotwana's efforts). His detractors, who included his successor, Harry Mothei, persistently cut him short with interjections on points of order. The frustrated Ramaotwana later said that he regarded the GCC tender awarded to Frenic as irregular. The company was engaged by the council in 2004 to collect refuse in Gaborone West.
However, on the lapse of the initial tender, the company allegedly assigned itself another job without the authorisation of the city council. Ramaotwana said the company cut grass and worked on drains without instructions from the GCC. It then brought a claim of P468, 000 in April this year claiming it was for the 26 months when it was working for GCC since December 2004. It charged P18, 000 every month. "A few months later, they brought another claim that increased the money to P504, 000 due to another four months that they were working after submitting the first claim. We wondered why they could go ahead and continue working while we were still querying why they allocated themselves work without our instruction," he said. Ramaotwana explained that the claim was presented first before the health committee in May 2007. The committee refused to pay and instead requested a report about how the work was done without normal tendering that is done on contracts over P100, 000.00.
