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AfrOil POLICY AfrOil

South African court scraps fuel tender

SOUTH AFRICA THE North Gauteng high court in Preto- The city then overpaid for the fuel it did
ria on July 1 cancelled a controversial tender receive, which the court said was owing to an
for fuel supplies to the city after identifying administrative error. Once again, the overpay-
irregularities. ments stopped when amaBhungane’s report was
One of the three companies that won the published.
tender in January last year funnelled cash into The judge found that BBT’s director, Hendrik
accounts linked to the head of Economic Free- Kganyago, was related to a senior official in the
dom Fighters (EFF), Julius Malema, and the city’s fleet division, Stanley Kganyago.
political party’s secretary-general, Marshall “The less I say about the relationship between
Dlamini, according to an investigation pub- Mr Hendrick Kganyago and Stanley Kganyago
lished last year by amaBhungane. at this stage the better,” he said, noting that the
Judge Windell ordered the tender to be can- forensic investigation by EY could lead to cor-
celled after a case was launched by a company ruption charges.
called Q Tique 27, which took part in the contest In its report, amaBhungane said the EFF had
but said it did not know there had been award “kingmaker” status thanks to its seats on the city
until amaBhungane’s report. council. ™
The tender resulted in contracts being signed
with Balimi Barui Trading (BBT), Rheinland
Investments and MDZ Fleet Solutions. BBT,
which held an existing fuel contract with the
city, paid ZAR15mn ($880,000) to companies
tied to Malema and Dlamini between mid-2018,
when the tender was first advertised, right up to
when amaBhungane’s investigation came out in
September.
Pretoria, otherwise known as Tshwane, over-
paid for fuels by ZAR10.6mn as a result of the
scandal, the court said. The city tried to claim a
judicial review of the contest was unnecessary,
hiring EY to carry out a forensic investigation.
But the court said there no purpose in delaying
a rule until EY had finished its work.
The tender documents asked companies to
provide quotes for six types of fuel, even though
Pretoria needs only two. BBT charged low prices
for the four unneeded grades but high prices for
the other two. City authorities then added up the
prices and concluded that BBT had the strongest
bid – a process that Windell said was “irrational
and procedurally unfair.” EFF leader Julius Malema says he has no ties to the tender winner (Photo: Briefly SA)

IEA roundtable calls for resilient and

sustainable energy systems in Africa

REGIONAL AFRICAN governments have called for sound (COVID-19) pandemic and global economic
government policies and enhanced investment recession on the continent’s energy systems.
to support economies and develop resilient and Those attending the meeting heard that since
sustainable energy systems. the lockdown was enforced in Africa in March,
The International Energy Agency (IEA) there has been a marked decline in progress
African Ministerial Roundtable met this week towards electricity access, while energy invest-
to consider the impact of the coronavirus ment trends in Africa have seen a drop.

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 27 08•July•2020