D-Day for Chimombe, Mpofu

Zvikomborero Parafini

Embattled businessmen Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu will know their fate today as Magistrate Stanford Mambanje is expected to hand down ruling on bail application in the street lighting tender scam.

The duo had circumvented the magistrate’s court to preside over their bail bid and went straight to the High Court which refused to hear their application.

Allegations are that the two through their company Juluka projects and plant hire, placed a bid amongst other companies for rehabilitation of street lighting ahead of the SADC summit.

The invitation to tender document by the City of Harare stipulated that all the prospective bidders must have among other requirements, stamped audited financial statements for the last two years, proof of payment for special procurement oversight committee [SPOC] administration fee, specific experience of work history (experience) with the City of Harare in relation to a similar project, NSSA Certificate of Compliance, Zimra Compliance Certificate amongst other things.

On 19 April, the City of Harare Evaluation Committee awarded Syvern Investments, Exodus and Company, Ship Tracks, and Onel Engineering the tender to rehabilitate eight of the ten lots.

Due to lot limitation, no company was awarded with more than two lots, therefore, two of the ten lots were left unawarded.

Juluka ENDD Joint Venture was disqualified after failing to meet the tender requirements.

Amongst other reasons for their disqualification was that their audited statements did not have an audit opinion which was a prerequisite for all the bidders on all the ten lots.

However, City of Harare went on to invite Juluka END joint venture to submit a fresh bid and the duo responded by submitting a bid document containing some false statements.

It is the State’s case that the duo claimed in their papers that they had the specific required experience related to street lighting and lied that they had installed light bulbs in the CBD.

It is alleged that the two misrepresented that they were compliant with the requirements of the PPDPA (General) Regulations which required the payment of a Special Procurement oversight Committee fee of US$400 by submitting in their bid document SPOC receipt they had used in their earlier bid which had been disqualified.

The state claims that they also submitted a bid security obtained on 26 March 2024, which they had also earlier used in the previous unsuccessful tender and submitted audit documents which they claimed were done by a consultancy company, which investigations revealed was unregistered.

Resultantly, Juluka ENDD Joint Venture (Pvt) Ltd was awarded the contract for the two lots.

Mpofu allegedly signed as managing director of the company and Chimombe signed as a witness which culminated in them receiving a part payment of US$260 000.