EBIS DIRECTOR, ‘DIGGER’, FA IN E0.5M TENDER MESS

MBABANE – What a football mess! What was meant to be a historic project to document Eswatini’s football development over the past 50 years (1968 to 2018) has blown open the football association’s tender procedures.

A serious issue of conflict of interest has come into play after the Eswatini National Football Association (ENFA) awarded the tender for this project to Eswatini Broadcasting and Information Services (EBIS) Director Martin Dlamini – a government employee.

Further compounding this is the involvement of football legend Josiah ‘Digger’ Dlamini who is demanding a share of the tender proceeds, as he claims to be the brains behind the project that he says was valued at around E500 000.
He claims to be the one who successfully pitched the idea to ENFA President Adam ‘Bomber’ Mtsetfwa despite that he (‘Digger’) was an employee of the association at the time.

This though is vigorously being disputed by Martin, who claims the idea is originally his and says he first pitched it to the football association in 2008 when the kingdom celebrated 40 years of independence.

The involvement of ‘Digger’ in the project is a violation of the Prevention of Corruption Act (POCA) of 2006, which, on Section 27 (1), states; “A member or an employee of a public body commits an offence of corruption where that member or employee or an immediate member of the family of that member or employee has a direct or indirect interest in any company or undertaking with which that public body proposes to deal, or that member or employee has a personal interest in any decision which that public body is to make, and that member or employee, knowingly fails to disclose the nature of that interest, or votes or participates in the proceedings of that public body relating to that dealing or decision.”

‘Digger’ is aware of the conflict that exists in his involvement but says he has been forced to spill the beans because he wants his money.
Martin, on the other hand, is also aware of the conflict pertaining to his participation in the tender and wonders what has gone into ‘Digger’ to make him come out in public about this job.

Procurement Act says

Section 60 (2) of the Procurement Act of 2011 is against the involvement of individuals in Martin’s position to be involved in such tenders as it stipulates; “Public officers and politicians shall not participate as tenderers in public procurement.”
A public officer, as provided in the Act, means ‘any officer employed in the public service’.

A concept paper seen by this publication shows that Dlamini was the Lead Consultant of the project dubbed ‘Swazi Football Turns 50’.
The objective of the project, according to the concept paper, was ‘to contribute to the historical 50th Independence Celebrations of the Kingdom of Swaziland (Eswatini) by tracing the footprints of the growth and development of post-independence  Swazi (Eswatini) football leading to international affiliation, including the role played by government, schools, individuals and private sector’.

Martin supposes that ‘Digger’ has decided to come out in public because he has failed to have the issue resolved internally at the ENFA.
Renowned Mbabane-based attorney Bongani Mdluli has been engaged to try and broker peace between Martin and ‘Digger’ but, so far, the process has failed to yield the desired results.

“When the lawyer called us into a meeting, I made it clear to him (‘Digger’) that what he is saying would be put to me, him and his employer in trouble on how his employer’s resources were being used. I even highlighted to him that this is a conflict of interest not only to him but also to me. We have discussed this thing extensively,” the EBIS director told the Times SUNDAY.
Mdluli confirmed having been engaged to facilitate the dispute-resolution between the two but said he could not divulge contents of the talks because of lawyer-client privilege.  

Though admitting that ‘Digger’ was its employee at the time the tender was awarded, the ENFA denied that he was engaged for the project but only acknowledged Martin.

How it all began

Relating how the project came about, ‘Digger’ told this publication that it was in late 2016 when he first informally discussed the project with Martin and they engaged further on it in 2017.
He said they both agreed that because he was an employee of the ENFA, he should talk to the association’s bosses about it, something he did but with little success.

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