‘No problem,' says Joburg as R1bn tender goes to officials' families or friends

Daily Maverick

a day ago

The City of Johannesburg defends the award of massive transport contracts to politically connected families, despite concerns from the Auditor-General and civic watchdogs
A week after Auditor-General revealed that the City of Johannesburg had awarded R972-million in dodgy family-linked tenders, city spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane has confirmed that the metro government sees no problem and will not investigate.
Six awards (or contracts) valued at almost R1-billion were made to the family of either a city official or councillor for the extension of the BRT/Rea Vaya bus system in 2023. The extension of the city transport service is eight years behind schedule, and a final deadline for the end of 2024 was also missed.
'There is no regulatory provision that prohibits the Municipality to award contracts to the category of people in question (spouse, child or parent of a person in service of state either actively or in the past twelve months). Therefore, the question whether the City failed in oversight and due diligence is misplaced,' said Modingoane.
The Auditor-General has a different view.
'Although there is no legislation that prohibits municipalities from making awards to suppliers in which close family members or business associates of employees or councillors have an interest, such awards create conflicts of interest for these employees or councillors and/or their close family members or business associates. The possibility of undue influence cannot be discounted, especially if the person could have influenced the procurement processes for these awards, potentially creating opportunities for irregularities.'
While Modingoane confirmed the awards were made for the BRT/Rea Vaya extension, he would not provide further details. He said the connected council official had not sat in on the award decision.
Asked if the award would be rescinded or investigated, Modingoane said, 'To rescind such an award will be unlawful and the Municipality will be exposed to litigation risks as a result'. He said that the transactions had been disclosed in the city's annual financial statements as required by law, and no further investigation was necessary.
BRT-Rea Vaya veers off track
When cities commit to ending spatial inequality (which means that poor black people live on the outskirts while the middle and wealthy classes live in the city near opportunities and amenities), there are two ways to do so: provide transport for workers to get to economic opportunities or increase social housing near jobs.
In Johannesburg, the rapid bus transport system was an innovative idea to mediate apartheid planning by making it cheap, easy and fast for workers living on the city's outskirts to go into town, to where they worked, or to get around.
The city, which began as a gold mining town, was built along the ultimate apartheid master plan. Black people were housed in dormitory towns and suburbs far out of the white city in enclaves easily controlled by security forces if they resisted – the violent response to the 1976 student rebellion was the obvious example of how it worked.
The BRT/Rea Vaya incorporates the taxi industry and co-owns two companies that run the system, PioTrans and Litsamaiso. The city pays BRT/Rea Vaya for trips made. The system has not been without conflict, especially with PioTrans.
Its expansion to the north (the so-called Phase 1C) of the project has fallen prey to serial infrastructure and leadership weaknesses that beset local government, which Maluleke highlighted. The city has expanded north, and job opportunities are increasingly available in the new nodes. Phase 1C would almost double the number of buses and take people to where the opportunities are.
But new stations lie dormant as delays have repeatedly impacted on roll-out. The weaknesses include corruption (as the R972-million contracts suggest), institutional capacity, effective project governance, ineffective planning, procurement and contract management weaknesses and a lack of accountability for poor performance.
Maluleke's report lays bare all these factors. Phase 1C is eight years behind schedule, and the Johannesburg Development Agency (JDA) missed a pledge to get it running by the end of 2024.
Daily Maverick regularly tracks the route to check, and progress is still far from complete. This detracts from the effort to end spatial inequality and get young people into jobs — Gauteng and Johannesburg have among the highest youth unemployment rates. Because it is subsidised, trips on the Rea Vaya are cheaper than other forms of public transport.
Intervention delivers little
Johannesburg is under soft intervention by the Presidency because of its rapidly collapsing infrastructure and services, but after 100 days, most residents say the impacts on the ground are imperceptible. In the past week, there have been multiday water cuts in the east of the city and power outages in the near west and across the inner city as underground fires roar through cabling.
Last week, Mayor Dada Morero launched a 'bomb squad' to help him improve city management.
MMC for Transport Kenny Kunene said, 'I have not heard anything about it (the R972-million dodgy tenders).' He said he would investigate and revealed that when he started his job in 2021, R23-million had been stolen from the BRT and officials had been suspended, but reinstated after the ANC intervened. He had ensured they exited as part of an anti-corruption plan, he told Daily Maverick.
Failing management
Johannesburg's audit outcome was unqualified with findings. (For context: the board of a private sector CEO of a company with a budget of R88-billion – Joburg's budget – would sack a CEO for this outcome.)
The city lost R2.9-billion in water and R4.93 billion in electricity. Auditors ensured city finance officials reduced fruitless and wasteful expenditure to R1.48-million in 2023/24. Over the past three years, this figure stood at R354-million. The AG said the quality of its submitted statements was poor, but good on publication after remediation. The quality of its performance reports was poor. The overall status of its financial controls was poor.
The BRT/Rea Vaya delays symbolise this failing management. The AG also found that 'The City of Johannesburg did not coordinate effectively with its entities. This was due to misalignment between the metro and its entities on expectations and plans, obligations, budgets and timelines for the successful delivery of key projects.'
The DA has lodged a formal complaint with the Special Investigating Unit over the R1-billion in awards to companies that are linked to current and former councillors, said its head of caucus, Belinda Kayser-Echeozonjoku.
'This shocking report paints a grim picture of a city where public money is seemingly treated as a personal piggy bank by those elected to serve it. At a time when Joburg's streets are crumbling, power outages are the norm and basic service delivery is in freefall, it is unacceptable that councillors may be benefiting from a broken procurement system.'
Risk is that nothing will be done – Corruption Watch
'The worrying thing is that it is a sizeable amount – it may be six officials (or six awards to one official) or their relatives who cost Joburg residents just under R1-billion.
'The official response is quite disturbing. The biggest risk is that nothing will be done, and another big transport infrastructure is threatened. Metro governments are regressing in terms of their reports to the Auditor-General,' said Moepeng Talane of Corruption Watch, who assesses all AG reports for the organisation.
'It's worrying and urgently needs the intervention of the provincial governments,' she said. DM