COSATU Congratulates minister on corruption crackdown
The Congress of South African Trade Unions congratulates Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan for instructing government departments to stop doing business with 120 blacklisted companies for up to 10 years (see Sowetan report).
The blacklist names restricted suppliers which have done deals with the Limpopo Department of Local Government and Housing. The blacklist will be put on the government's website and will include either the registration number of the offending firm or the ID number of the person associated with a procurement.
COSATU also welcomes the Minister's announcement of stringent new regulations designed to crack down on tender fraud and overpricing.
The Treasury is to monitor all tenders above R500 000 at all levels of government, including municipalities. Bid documents will have to include the names of all directors and senior officials of a company so that the authorities could check them against the state's payroll, to ensure that the directors and senior officials were not elected public representatives or public servants.
Government hopes that this would make it possible to stop the prevalent practice of bidding under different company names. The participation of a blacklisted corporate executive in the management of another company would result in the other company being blacklisted.
Other reasons for excluding businesses include fronting - putting blacks on the board merely to meet BEE requirements - to maladministration, bribery, non-performance and misrepresentation. Government departments and municipalities will be required to give the Treasury a list of the tenders they planned to issue well ahead of time to ensure efficient management of the process and to fight overpricing.
This is further welcome evidence that the campaign to put an end to corruption within the public service is being stepped up. COSATU hopes that the same blacklisting measures will be taken in every other province where evidence of corruption, the abuse of tenders, overpricing and any other criminal acts comes to light.
Statement issued by Patrick Craven, COSATU national spokesperson, June 3 2011
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