ActionSA angered by Tshwane Council failure to consider the Rooiwal Forensic Report
2 October 2022
On Thursday 29 September 2022, Tshwane Council sat with an agenda again containing the contentious forensic investigation report into the appointment of Edwin Sodi’s Blackhead Consulting for the refurbishment of the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant.
As a matter of record, ActionSA brought a motion requiring this forensic investigation in March following constant assurances that the tender was without legal shortcomings and that the project was on track.
Despite an original Council approved deadline of May 2022 having to be moved to July 2022, inexplicably this urgent report had been deferred three times prior to this sitting. A Special Council sitting demanded by ActionSA was convened on 14 September 2022 to deal exclusively with this matter.
There appears to be forces at work to prevent the consideration of this report.
Of great concern is the damming media reports that deepen our concerns over the reasons the Council sitting of the 29 September 2022 was once again postponed. It is reported that the forensic report finds that five City of Tshwane senior officials must face criminal charges for their part in allowing this irregular and illegal tender which cost the Tshwane rate payers nearly R292 million after a forensic report looking into the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant found that they had flouted procurement rules. This adds salt into the wounds of the hundreds of thousands of residents of Hammanskraal and Rooiwal that are supplied with water unsafe for human, animal or agricultural consumption.
Arising from public hearings conducted by ActionSA in Hammanskraal in 2021, the following major concerns were recorded in this matter. These are concerns that now form part of an SIU investigation:
The tender amounting to R295 million was awarded two companies belonging to Edwin Sodi for the upgrade of the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Neither of the companies in the joint venture had any experience in this kind of project.
The joint venture did not have the required funds for the site establishment. The City of Tshwane paid R1 million upfront to float the costs of site establishment.
The joint venture, in contravention of the supply chain policies of the City of Tshwane, had to be ceded R71 million upfront because it lacked the resources for the initial capital outlay.
When the adjudication committee cancelled the tender award, the City of Tshwane inexplicably did not defend its decision in the legal proceedings brought by the joint venture.
ActionSA has always held a view that there was grave impropriety regarding the Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Plant tender. We have continued to seek answers and the intervention from Mayor Randall Williams since the public hearings held in April 2021, the report from which has not received any response.
It would be a mistake to assume that ActionSA’s fight for the human right of clean water for people of Hammanskraal and Rooiwal prior to the election, can somehow be muted now that ActionSA is in coalition. Coalitions must fight for the residents and ActionSA will lead this fight, alone if necessary.
ActionSA remains even more resolute, owing to the recent developments where this report still did not serve in Council, to ensure that it is passed and that the recommendations thereof are immediately implemented by the new City Manager to the end of which all implicated individuals, where necessary, must face the full might of the law.
We will further pursue all available avenues within the prescripts of our coalition agreement, and in law if necessary, to bring this matter to finality.
Issued by Bongani Baloyi, Gauteng Provincial Chairperson, ActionSA, 3 September 2022
