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Outcry over Mpisane R255m contract

The DA in eThekwini has cried foul over the awarding of a R255 million housing contract to businesswoman Shauwn Mpisane, saying it had become the norm to bypass normal tender procedures for her company. The eThekwini housing committee’s Nigel Gumede elected not to place any of his comments on record. S’bu Mpisane, Shauwn’s husband and business partner, also refused to comment on the criticism. Zwakele Mncwango, the DA eThekwini Caucus Leader, said the contract, which was discussed at a finance and procurement sitting on Wednesday, was awarded in February for the construction of low-cost housing units in uMlazi. “Normal tender procedures were bypassed under the guise that it was an emergency necessitated by the need for service delivery.”

Mncwango said every municipality’s core mandate centred on service delivery and it was possible to deliver without the habitual bypassing of usual tender processes. “However, it has become the norm in eThekwini to bypass normal tender procedures whenever an Mpisane company is involved and this is completely unacceptable.” He added that in the previous financial year alone, Mpisane received nearly half a billion rand’s worth of tenders from the city. A media report high-lighted that Mpisane was one of the five company owners who, between them, had received more than R2 billion in tenders from eThekwini over the past two years.

Some of the major pay-outs the city had made to Mpisane included a R288m unauthorised out-of-court settlement that arose after a housing tender dispute, another low-cost housing tender in uMlazi for R200m and a R318m contract for the uMlazi Infill Project, among others, he said. He said the DA would be calling on the public protector to investigate these deals. “It makes no sense as to how it is that Mpisane is constantly awarded multi-million rand projects by the city without competing with other business people.”

Source: www.iol.co.za

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Outcry over Mpisane R255m contract

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