3 March 2009
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) earlier today expressed
its deep concern at allegations reported in the City Press on 1 March 2009,
over a tender for the disbursement of R70 billion of social grants. The tenders
were withdrawn allegedly because of the involvement of Thuthukile Skweyiya, the
wife of Social Development Minister, Zola Skweyiya, with one of the two
bidders, though this has been denied by the minister's spokesperson, who has
confirmed that the tenders have been withdrawn, but that it has nothing to do
with any relationship involving the minister's wife.
Cosatu has since been informed of the real reasons for the decision to
reject all the tenders submitted. An Adjudication Committee (AC) was charged
with reporting to the CEO of the South African Social Security Agency (SASSA)
whether the tenders submitted to the Bid Evaluation Committee (BEC) complied
with its criteria for the tender, criteria which they captured as follows:
"The strategic intent of this payment tender is to ensure that service
providers are appointed in all nine provinces to provide standardised payment
services that are in line with norms and standards of service delivery quality
which were approved by government in 2001. In addition, the payment contract
aims to ensure cost-effective services with the maximum transfer of risk to the
private sector. The tender also intends to address the principles of Black
Economic Empowerment (BEE)."
The AC was of the unanimous view that not one of the strategic objectives of
the payment tender is met by any of the recommendations made by the Bid
Evaluation Committee in its report to the AC:
* Payment services offered by the tenders recommended by the BEC do not
provide "standardised payment services". Indeed, the three recommended tenders
continued to offer multiple-channel payment services
* Payment services offered via merchants are not only not in line with
SASSA's norms and standards of service delivery, but in fact undermines the
norms and standards of service delivery by failing to enhance the integrity of
the services, and by failing to provide a safe and secure environment for
beneficiaries, or intended beneficiaries
* The BEC-proposed payment contracts in favour of the three tenders are not
cost-effective as it involves not only the dislocation of thousands of
beneficiaries, but also the payment of a premium by SASSA for the rendering of
payment services in certain provinces
* The AC is not satisfied, let alone convinced, that the recommended awards
ensure maximum transfer of risk to the private sector. In this regard, the
approach by the BEC to the issue of payment guarantees was entirely
unsatisfactory, placing SASSA at enormous financial risk.
* The least said about the application of the principle of Black Economic
Empowerment in relation to the tender, the better. In fact, only one of the
proposed tenderers, Empilweni, qualified for preference points as the other
tenderers are public companies. This aspect was a most disappointing aspect of
the tender process as far as the AC is concerned.
After engaging the BEC, the AC met on its own to deliberate and concluded
that the entire evaluation process was unreliable. In all these reasons for
rejecting all the tenders, there is absolutely no mention of any of the
allegations in the City Press about the involvement of Thuthukile Skweyiya with
one of the tenders.
This confirms the view of the Minister's spokesperson and strongly suggests
that the story was maliciously planted in order to falsely discredit the
Minister and his wife, for which the City Press should apologise and print a
retraction.
Issued by: Department of Social Development
3 March 2009
Source: Department of Social Development (http://www.dsd.gov.za)
