‘Whistleblower’ MP lost Sandanezwe tender

MBABANE – The Member of Parliament (MP) regarded as the whistleblower in the E15 million Sandanezwe scandal owns a company that lost out on the tender for this project.

Sicelo Dlamini is MP for the Maphalaleni constituency.
Sandanezwe is the Invasive Alien Plant species, which government spends millions of Emalangeni trying to bring under control.

For the last few years, government has been allocating funds to facilitate the eradication of this plant.
For the current financial year, a total of E21 million has been allocated.
Part of the money is for surveying and mapping while about E57 000 is for public awareness.
A week ago, government suspended operations of companies to whom government outsourced this task.
The reason given was that there were suspected anomalies.

The Parliament Portfolio Committee for the Ministry of Tourism and Environment has been tasked with investigating operations of the companies.
Among other things, the committee will investigate how the tenders were awarded and if the work being done is worth what government is paying.
Macford Nsibandze, Minister of Tourism and Environment, announced the suspension of operations under this tender.

It has been gathered that MP Dlamini who has been vocal in Parliament on issues related to Sandanezwe, owned Sibuya Construction, a company that had been among those controlling the invasive plant.
For the last three years, the company has been among those that won tenders to do the work.
However, it failed to make it into the list of 20 companies that won.

The MP confirmed to this newspaper yesterday, that he owned Sibuya Construction.
“However, I have since resigned as a director,” he said.
“My wife is now running it, together with another person.”

He explained that he decided to resign as director because he was too busy with his duties as an MP.
He will return to run the company after his term in Parliament ends.
“We all know that the Parliament job is not permanent. I will still go back to run the company when my term ends,” he said.
He admitted that Sibuya Construction had been interested but did not win the tender to eradicate Sandanezwe this year.
However, he says by that time, he had already resigned.
He resigned, as proven by records in the Registrar of Companies’ offices, in January 2009.

The MP said he resigned as director but not because there was any law barring him from running a company.
He said what was only required was that he should declare his interests, which he says he did.