The South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL) has announced measures intended to swiftly complete the awarding of five contracts worth a combined R17.4 billion that were recently not approved for awarding by the board.
The need for SANRAL to uphold internal controls, guarantee effective corporate governance, and conduct procurement in accordance with statutory, regulatory, and policy requirements were among the justifications given for the cancellation of tenders.
Themba Barrange Mhambi, chairperson of SANRAL, stated at a media briefing on Thursday that the failure to award the bids caused a delay in the execution of the projects, which are essential for expanding the nation’s economy as part of investments in infrastructure.
“As SANRAL, we made the decision to quicken the necessary tender re-advertising and awarding.
We have therefore given ourselves a four-month window in which to re-advertise, assess, decide, and award the tenders,” Mhambi said.
SANRAL chose to award an independent public institution with knowledge and experience managing projects of the size of those five contracts in order to ensure the integrity of the procurement process moving forward.
“We promised to act quickly and complete the appointment of that organization by the end of June.
The Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) has agreed to serve as our infrastructure procurement and delivery management support on the five important projects whose contracts were cancelled.
The SANRAL board is glad to announce today in keeping with that purpose and pledge.
He made the important point, which was crucial for the SANRAL board, that the DBSA was not involved in the design, cost estimation, or tender documentation stages of the projects that were cancelled.
As a result, there is no conflict of interest on their part.
This should reassure the public and other interested parties about the independence and integrity of the new procurement procedures for the projects.
The track record and reputation of DBSA in relation to such situations speak for themselves.
“With regard to our recovery plan for these projects, we have already completed the first portion of our deadline.
The operational portion of this must come after the governing portion.
As the board, we have given SANRAL’s employees the authority to manage the organization’s activities during the next three months, under the direction of our interim CEO, Mhambi stated.
Lehlohonolo Memeza, the acting CEO of SANRAL, stated that the scope of the services to be provided by the DBSA includes the evaluation of compliance, technical, and financial aspects of pertinent tenders in addition to offering independent construction management oversight throughout the construction period of the projects resulting from the tenders.
We want to reassure the people that the procurement and execution strategy for these projects is now fully on track and will be carried out with the utmost care, independence, and integrity “said Memeza.
She stated that there would be probity inspections during the procurement stages.
The following timetable is anticipated for the completion of this work phase:
A Procurement Project Inception Meeting and the creation of a Memorandum of Agreement will both take place in June (MoA).
The project team will be organized and data will be gathered in July and August.
Bid specifications will be reviewed, bid specifications and advertisements will be approved, tenders will be advertised, bids will be received, bids will be evaluated, and bids will be decided.
The tender advertisements will be published throughout July, so interested parties are asked to keep an eye out for them.
The SANRAL board will examine recommendations when the bid evaluation and adjudication report is submitted to them in September, and then the tenders will be awarded.
The DBSA’s function will change to project oversight on behalf of the board after the bids are awarded and SANRAL’s project managers and consultants start evaluating contractor performance and project delivery.
This will ensure that these projects receive continuing board monitoring and support “She said.
Fikile Mbalula, the minister of transport, applauded the board for acting swiftly to resolve the procedural irregularities and for having a clear plan in place to swiftly complete the awarding of these tenders.
“SANRAL has taken steps to guarantee that we work quickly to correct the lapses and reach the point of award quickly.
We do this because we recognize the importance of the projects impacted by the non-award of the tenders.
“I have impressed on the board the need to move with speed in addressing the anomalies and awarding these tenders in a manner that is transparent and fair, given the strategic nature of the affected projects and their importance in giving momentum to economic reconstruction and recovery,” the Minister said.
He emphasized the significance of cutting back on unnecessary and wasteful spending as well as irregular spending.
The establishment of early warning systems to identify and regulate actions that would otherwise result in irregular expenditure or expensive litigation is required of us and all of our entities as part of our efforts to limit irregular expenditure.
“The board swiftly acted to protect the integrity of the tenders by identifying the violation of due process through its oversight system.
Since effective service delivery depends on good governance, Mbalula stated, “we will constantly have governance on our radar and demand quarterly reports to include governance by our businesses.”