Ex-Harare bosses in court over Mpofu tender

Prosper Dembedza-Herald Correspondent

FORMER Harare City director of works Phillip Pfukwa and former chamber secretary Josphine Ncube have appeared in court for allegedly awarding a tender to a company linked to the incarcerated businessman Moses Mpofu in 2015 without following procedure.

Pfukwa and Ncube were facing abuse of office charges when they appeared before Harare magistrate Mrs Marehwanazvo Gofa who freed them on US$400 bail, each.

The pair allegedly awarded a €350 000 tender to Synlak, a company owned by Mpofu for the construction of a European Union-funded biogas project in Mbare.

It is the State’s case that sometime in December 2013, City of Harare received a grant award of €350 500 from the European Union for the design and construction of four by 200m biogas digesters and the supply, installation and commissioning of a 100KVA biogas generator for Mbare biogas project.

It is alleged that on January 30 2015, the City of Harare, represented by Pfukwa and Calvin Chigariro, had a meeting with the EU delegation represented by Jorge Pereiro, Severin Mellac and Martin Zhou, whose main agenda was to deliberate on the progress in the implementation of the bio-based waste management project, which they were funding.

In the meeting, it was agreed that City of Harare would launch a public tender to select a suitable civil works contractor for the project and that the council was to award the contract by March 31 2015.

The court heard that procurement proceedings done prior to January 2018 were done in terms of the repealed Procurement Act. Consequently, on March 13 2015, an invitation to tender COH/DOW/S.9/2015 was published in the Herald and The Chronicle, which was opened at town townhouse on March 24 2015.

It is alleged that four companies namely, Synlak, The Mongrel Investments, Sneydon Investments and Contech Contractors responded to the tender invitation.

Pfukwa allegedly recommended the awarding of the tender to Synlak and their consultants and subcontractors after misrepresenting that they had carried out civil construction and detailed biogas projects for the Rural Electrification Agency.

On March 30 2015, accused, two working in common purpose with accused one, went on to proffer an internal memorandum to the procurement committee chairperson and its members recommending the award of the contract to Synlak, misrepresenting that it met all the requirements of the tender while it was not eligible.

Both the accused signed the misrepresenting internal memorandum. On March 31 2015, after tender opening and verification, Pfukwa did a tender evaluation and recorded his decision on the comparative schedule recommending the award of the contract to Synlak contrary to Section 6 of the repealed Procurement Regulation, 2002 which required that the accounting officer, the town clerk, should record his decision on the comparative schedule which shall be retained by the department for audit purposes and a copy transmitted to the board.

The court heard that the awarding of the contract to Synlak was done without the involvement of the adjudication committee, accounting officer and the procurement committee contrary to the repealed Procurement Act.

Investigations revealed that despite having been paid the whole contract price of US$465 290 by the City of Harare, Synlak did not deliver to the prejudice of the City of Harare.

The accused persons’ actions were contrary and inconsistent with their duties as public officers with the intention of extending an undue favour to Synlak, the State alleged further.