Home | News | ’LANDERS BOSS’S COMPANY IN E300M TENDER MESS

’LANDERS BOSS’S COMPANY IN E300M TENDER MESS

14/02/2021 00:36:00 BY WELCOME DLAMINI

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MBABANE – Sprinter or no sprinter, six months ago, Ally Kgomongwe suffered a huge financial blow.

A tender that could have seen Ally’s Counter Force Security – a South African company based in Pretoria and owned by Mbabane Highlanders Football Club boss Ally Kgomongwe – being paid E8 million a month for three years, was declared null and void.

This was because of ‘irregularities’ in the whole conduct of the tender processes.

The tender, which was supposed to be awarded to one successful company, required the winning bidder to provide 518 guards for areas under the Rustenburg Local Municipality.

However, Kgomongwe’s company was mysteriously allocated the lion’s share of the E300 million-worth tender while the company that achieved the highest number of points during the evaluation process got a small portion of the cake.

Mabotwane Security Services is the company that came tops during the evaluation process, but was only given the responsibility to provide 62 security guards at a cost of around E700 000 a month for three years.

Ally’s Counter Force Security, on the other hand, was given the remaining 456 posts, which attracted the lucrative payment of E8 million a month from December 2018 to December 2021.

This did not sit well with Mabotwane Security Services, who went to court to challenge the municipality’s decision to split the tender.

service provider

In the High Court of South Africa (North West Division: Mahikeng) before Acting Judge M.E Mahlangu, it was related that on August 3, 2018, the municipality advertised the tender for the appointment of an accredited service provider for security services and the closing date was August 23, 2018.

A total of 20 companies were reported to have submitted bid applications, which were considered, and after evaluation of the bids, Mabotwane Security Services and Ally’s Counter Force Security qualified for the next round.

The two companies’ bids then went before the Bid Evaluation Committee (BEC) for the next evaluation phase and the assessment was to the effect that the tender be split between Mabotwane and Ally’s.

On December 5, 2018, the two companies were informed that they were both successful bidders of the tender.

Mabotwane, having scored the highest number of points, was not appointed on all the sites as per the tender document for which it submitted the bid and Ally’s was appointed to the other sites, something that was not clearly stated in the bid document. Mabotwane contended before court that the municipality’s decision to split the tender between itself and Ally’s be set aside.

The municipality reacted in an unusual manner by opposing Mabotwane’s contention and launching a counter application to review and set aside its decision of awarding the tender not only to Mabotwane but also to Ally’s.

The municipality requested that its decision to award the tender to Mabotwane and Ally’s Counter Force Security be reviewed and set aside in that it was inconsistent with the provisions of Section 217(1) of the Constitution and the concomitant statutory procurement provisions contained in the Local Government: Municipal Finance Management Act, Act 56 of 2003, the Supply Chain Management Regulations (SCMR), 2005, the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act (PPPFA), 5 of 2000 and the Preferential Procurement Regulations (PPR), 2017, and accordingly ultra vires and invalid.

Also, the municipality sought the court to declare that the adjudication of the tender by itself did not comply with the statutory procurement processes and procedures and accordingly that the tender by itself and that the tender itself was ultra vires, void and invalid.

Moreover, the municipality sought that the costs of the counter application be paid by Mabotwane Security Services and or Ally’s Counter Force Security. Kgomongwe’s company did not oppose the municipality’s counter application; but Mabotwane did.

set aside

However, during the hearing of the matter, Mabotwane, just like Ally’s, did not oppose the counter application and the judge stated that this meant both security companies agreed that the municipality’s decision be reviewed and set aside.

The only issues that the court was left with to give a ruling was whether to award the tender only to Mabotwane; and whether Mabotwane submitted an ‘acceptable tender’ as defined in Section 1 of the Procurement Act and required in terms of the provisions of the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, Act 5 of 2000.

After submission from both Mabotwane and the municipality, the court concluded that ‘the tender was not properly adjudicated from the bid evaluation phase and that resulted in the subsequent appointment of Mabotwane Security Services and Ally’s Court Force Security, which transgressed the provisions of Section 217(1) of the Constitution and the applicable provisions of MFMA, the SCRM, the PPPFA and the PPR’.

“It is clear that the tender process had irregularities at almost every level of the process from the selection processes, the evaluation and the adjudication of the bids,” the judge said.

The acting judge found that the municipality was correct in concluding that Mabotwane did not present an ‘acceptable tender’.

In his orders, the acting judge dismissed, with costs, Mabotwane’s review application and the municipality’s counter application was granted with costs.

This judgment was issued six months ago - on August 20, 2020.

When Mabotwane Security Services first brought the issue of the tender irregularities into the public domain, the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) – South Africa’s third most supported political party – called upon the Hawks to investigate what had happened.

alleged corruption

City Press quoted EFF North West spokesperson Jerry Matebesi calling for the investigation, for alleged corruption, of Executive Mayor Mpho Khunou and other managers at the municipality.

At that time, City Press reported that the evaluation report showed that Mabotwane had scored 10 out of 10 points during the evaluation process.

“Hwibidu Security Services emerged as runner-up after scoring six. Ally’s was third on the list after scoring only five points,” the newspaper reported.

City Press reported that the technical report stated that the technical evaluation team could not verify whether Ally’s was firearm-compliant and the address of their offices was not verified as they had not signed a lease agreement during site visits by the bid committee.

The newspaper quoted the technical report as saying:

“The technical evaluation team was shown the firearm strongroom but could not gain access inside. The team could not verify whether the company was accredited for firearms, but was only told by the company CEO (chief executive officer) that they were accredited and had 90 firearms belonging to the company.”

City Press further reported that the decision to split the tender between Mabotwane and Ally’s security company had baffled municipality insiders, who said they did not understand the rationale behind the deviation from the initial tender specifications.

Ally’s lawyer Mandla Tshabalala was quoted saying his client was not at fault.

gave evidence

“In our answering affidavit, we gave evidence that we complied. According to the municipality, the reason for wanting to review (the tender) was that they were not supposed to issue the tender to two companies,” Tshabalala reportedly said.

Hwibidu Managing Director Walter Rachidi reportedly said his company was also considering taking legal action against the municipality.

“Our legal team has requested information from the municipality. How do you give a tender to a company which scored the lowest,” Rachidi reportedly said and further called upon the municipality to concede that it made a mistake.

“This is a very stupid mistake. My advice to the municipality is that they must do the right thing and award the tender to the right company. We are not going to accept re-advertisement of the tender. We are going to challenge it,” he reportedly added.

The municipality’s spokesperson reportedly refused to say more than, ‘the municipality, respecting the rule of law and its independence, will not make any further comment in line with the subjudice principle, until the matter has been finalised’.

At the time, the EFF accused the municipality of using the tender to raise funds for the ANC ahead of the general elections that were to take place in May 2019.

The Democratic Alliance, South Africa’s main opposition political party, through its then North West Premier candidate Joe McGluwa, reportedly said it had raised the issue of the security tender at a portfolio committee meeting.

“We warned against the allocation of the security tender after it went to court.

“The DA is not surprised by what has happened as far as the adjudication of the tender is concerned,” McGluwa was quoted saying by City Press.

Meanwhile, Kgomongwe, when contacted by this publication, said his company ‘was not at fault’. “But the court is still on, according to a report from my lawyer,” he said.

When told about the judgment, he said it was best to contact his lawyer, Tshabalala.

court process

The lawyer said the matter had since been appealed by Mabotwane and Ally’s Counter Force Security was not part of the court process but was awaiting the court’s decision.

“We will only act after the court has made its ruling,” he said and maintained that Ally’s did not do anything wrong in the whole tender process but got awarded a job they had tendered for.

In May 2019, Ally Kgomongwe signed a five-year contract to be Mbabane Highlanders’ director and since then he has been spending a lot of money towards the running of the team.

But his spending spree has been witnessed mostly in the past year where he began buying a number of local players and brought in some foreign stars, including Thamsanqa Sangweni who has however moved back to South Africa where he has signed for DStv Premiership side Chippa United.

By December 2020, the Times of Eswatini Sports Desk reported that Kgomongwe had spent around E1.6 million in the acquisition of new players for the team.

He has also extended financial support to other elite league teams, including Manzini Wanderers Football Club.

His recent spending has been on the much-publicised acquisition of a 22-seater Mercedes Benz sprinter bus that was owned by Highlanders’ traditional rivals Mbabane Swallows Football Club but repossessed by EswatiniBank.

The bus, for which Kgomongwe has paid E355 000, is said to have been repossessed after Swallows failed to honour its monthly instalments of E16 000 for a balance of E300 000.

For the past two weeks, the local media has been dominated by news of the auction sale of this sprinter bus, to a point where some readers felt they had read enough about it.