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Missing basic, yet so important, information such as company addresses as per a supplier database and directors’ ID numbers.
This was the reason the initial request by the City of Tshwane to have tenderpreneur Edwin Sodi blacklisted was found to have some flaws by National Treasury.
On Thursday, mayor Cilliers Brink announced Tshwane had restarted the process of blacklisting Sodi and his companies after the city failed to follow some processes on the initial request made to Treasury about eight months ago.
“The city had to restart the whole blacklisting process because National Treasury said we missed a few steps. That is fine, we will keep on going until we get it right," Brink said.
Tshwane wants Sodi's two companies NJR Projects and Blackhead Consulting as well as their partner CMS Water Engineering to be blacklisted for the failed R292m project to upgrade the Rooiwaal wastewater treatment plant to improve the quality of water in Hammaskraal. More than 20 people died from cholera in the area in 2023.
“That consortium and their directors have until September 26 2024 to give the city reasons why they should not be blacklisted, whereafter a blacklisting committee will make a recommendation to the National Treasury,” said Brink.
According to finance MMC Jacqui Uys, the city’s initial request was found to be incomplete as it did not include essential information such as company addresses as per the central supplier database and company directors’ ID numbers.
“With the new submission the city has remedied the deficiencies of the previous submission in order to ensure completeness,” she said.
She said the omission of the essential information to Treasury was unintended due to the complexity involved in the blacklisting process.
He said this came to light when director-general from Treasury, Duncan Pieterse, responded to its letter asking for progress on the process to blacklist Sodi and his companies.
"The NT [National Treasury] has assessed the submitted information and documents and has responded to the City of Tshwane in a letter on 27 March 2024, outlining the shortcomings and the non-compliance in the restriction process. As of this date, the NT has not received a response to the matter," said Pieterse in his response to ActionSA.
"In the letter, the NT comprehensively outlined the processes and the shortcomings where the city of Tshwane had not followed the due process."
Sodi's contract was terminated in May 2022 and criminal charges were laid against the three companies.
The city's plan to blacklist Sodi has been a drawn-out process.
Last year city manager Johann Mettler told Sowetan that a letter with intention to blacklist Sodi which he had signed off in October 2022 fell through the cracks and was never dispatched by the then CFO Umar Banda.
In February this year the city then wrote to Sodi's lawyers asking them to give reasons why their client should not be barred from doing business with the state.
In their response, the lawyers said it would be unfair and/or unreasonable to hold Sodi responsible for his partner CMS’s shortcomings, which rendered the joint venture unable to deliver on the Rooiwaal project.
In the same month, the city proceeded to write to Treasury seeking to have Sodi's companies restricted.
Moloih@sowetan.co.za
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