SAPS head of supply chain management Molefe Fani on Thursday defended the due diligence undertaken to award the contract to the company owned by attempted murder-accused tenderpreneur Vusimuzi “Cat” Matlala.
Responding to questions at the parliamentary inquiry that examined the Medicare 24 Contract Tshwane District contract for health services, Fani said the committees involved in evaluation and adjudicating tenders relied heavily on the Central Supplier Database when making their decisions.
“As I said earlier I had no knowledge of Vusimuzi Matlala. I may have heard in the news that there are issues at Tembisa (hospital) but for me personally and probably for the members of the committee, for us to link him at that time to Tembisa did not happen.
“It did not appear to us at that time he was a person who is wanted,” he said.
Fani, who chairs the Bid Adjudication Committee (BAC), said the framework of restriction of suppliers indicated that a department or an entity that has experienced anomaly with a supplier should initiate the process for restriction.
“It would appear, based on CSD report, such process was never embarked upon by any department, resulting in his company cleared in the CSD and not restricted in the CSD and not registered in the register of restricted suppliers.”
Fani was giving evidence at the parliamentary inquiry probing the allegations that were made by KwaZulu-Natal commissioner Nhlanhla Mkhwanazi on July 6.
The inquiry yesterday focused on the awarding of the contract to Matlala’s company which the SAPS internal audit found to have been irregularly awarded.
Suspended Police Minister Senzo Mchunu had asked to be briefed on the tender process followed and instructed an audit of the award following media reports linking Matlala to the R2 billion Tembisa Hospital looting spree.
Fani said there was no restriction of Matlala or his company.
“Had we known this person, Vusimuzi Matlala or the company he operates under is suspicious, as I indicated, we would have flagged it with legal (services) and legal (services) would have provided us with a direction,” he said.
The inquiry heard earlier that the tender was advertised on January 31, 2024, followed by a briefing of service providers on February 8, 2024, and the bid application closed on February 19, 2024.
A total of 22 bids were received, and the BEC prepared a report recommending the appointment of the Medicare24 Contract Tshwane District on April 29, 2024.
The inquiry heard that National Police Commissioner Fannie Masemola was contacted by the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (IDAC) while the tender was being adjudicated around May 2024, warning that there was a company linked to Matlala that was bidding for the contract.
IDAC had informed Masemola that Matlala’s company did not have a tax clearance certificate, had been blacklisted, and was involved in the Tembisa Hospital R2 billion looting spree.
Masemola had spoken about the matter to the then acting divisional commissioner for supply chain management, Major General Hankins, who assured him that “there was nothing untoward with the evaluation process”.
Fani, who chairs the BAC, said he did not know of any concerns raised by IDAC, and none of the committee members made declarations with the contract.
“It was unknown that this concern had been raised with the national commissioner.”
The internal audit at the request of Mchunu observed red flags or evidence of fronting in the bid of Medicare 24 Contract Tshwane District.
The auditors found that the company has one African male director with address registering his office in Boksburg.
The company had a franchise agreement with another company, with whom it shared the same business address.
“The bidder did not indicate in the bidding documents the third party supplier arrangement,” reads the audit report.
The auditors picked up that the franchise agreement was not signed by the franchisee and could not be relied at the time of the bidding.
Fani conceded that the bid documents that were submitted were not complete and Media24 Contract should have been disqualified.
The audit also found that the pricing schedule submitted differed from the issued with original bid documents and control numbers of each page were changed.
Fani said the BEC should have looked at the format of the documents.
“If altered this should have been a disqualification,” he said.
He reiterated that had they known the issue of Matlala, they would have flagged it for legal services to craft a reason to justify why the supplier should not be appointed.
“The assumption that BEC and BAC ought to have known, I dispute that,” he said.
