Sizwe sama Yende
Disgruntled company owners have accused Mpumalanga Public Works, Roads and Transport officials of favouring foreign-owned entities who are awarded a bulk of consulting engineer tenders more that locals.
They complained to The People’s Eye particularly about Afrisa Consulting (Pty) Ltd, which they claim has been receiving the largest chuck of the consulting work in the department every financial year.
This tendency of appointing foreign companies continued despite former MEC Mandla Ndlovu having raised a concern about this to departmental officials. Ndlovu led the department for a short while before he was elected premier.
“I did ask and warn the department’s officials against this when I realised in meetings of big infrastructure projects that there were many foreign companies. We are not xenophobic but we must be biased to local companies and have valid reasons when we have to look outside,” Ndlovu said.
Afrisa’s Tanzanian executives – Jonathan Ntoni and Isa Chizenga – did not respond to written questions sent to them on October 14. Their website indicates that Afrisa been appointed to offer professional services in big roads, hospitals, schools, sanitation, bridges as well as other projects within Mpumalanga and outside the province.
Consulting engineering companies earn 10% of the value of each of the projects they are contracted, hence outcry from the local companies who feel isolated. The department issues contracts worth billions of rands.
The complainants who also include departmental officials have however asked not to be identified for fear of reprisals.
The People’s Eye has been reliably told that 14 of the 48 consulting engineer contracts were awarded to Afrisa in the past five years. That is 29.2 % of all the contracts.
Mpumalanga Public Works, Roads and Transport spokesperson, Bongani Dhlamini, however said that Afrisa was appointed in five projects of the 48 – a claim countered by our sources within the department.
Dhlamini said that the department awarded 43 contracts to 32 consultants over five years. “The allegation is therefore factually incorrect,” he said.