Minister must take action to mitigate consequences of scrapped ECM contract

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the cancellation of the controversial ECM contract by the Department of Trade and Industry. Mr. Tsediso Matona, the Director General, confirmed late on Tuesday, 15 June 2010 that ValorIT was served with a notice to this effect on Thursday, 10 June 2010. However, the cancellation in itsel, is not enough. The Minister must take action to mitigate the damage and recover as much of the R 90 million of public money already paid to the IT firm as possible.

This will require the completion of a full investigation into the matter. Alleged tender corruption is no light matter and the DA insists that those who have been responsible for the losses and delays caused by the alleged rigging of this tender be brought to book. In a recent Parliamentary reply it was confirmed that ValorIT had access to the very sensitive company and patent information kept in custody by the Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (CIPRO).

I will be writing to the Minister to ascertain how he intends to guard against potentially fraudulent activity following the legal dispute with ValorIT, activities that would seriously hurt the thousands of businesses that are required by law to register their company information with Cipro. I will also be asking him if and how he intends to mitigate the substantial losses incurred by the Department as a result of the now-scrapped ECM contract and how he intends to prevent irregular tender processes from occurring in the future.

Statement issued by Andricus van der Westhuizen, MP, Democratic Alliance deputy shadow minister of trade and industry, June 17 2010

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