By ‘Majirata Latela
In a move to pave way for commencement of the delayed multimillion Maloti Mpilo Boulevard Intersections and Links project after winning its Court of Appeal last Friday, Maseru City Council is finally preparing to sign the contract with SCIG-SMCG-TIM Joint Venture.
The M380million tender to implement the project was awarded in October 2019 to SCIG-SMGG-TIM Joint Venture, a consortium in which a Chinese national who was at the time holding a senior government position was alleged to have interests.
However, another group of companies that lost the tender to the Chinese-led joint venture filed an urgent court bid in January last year, for the tender award to be overturned, with their lawyer claiming there was evidence of official interference in the tender process that bordered on corruption.
On November 25 2020 Judge Sakoane Sakoane ruled in favour of Unik Construction company by reviewing and setting aside the awarding of the tender by MCC to SCIG-SMG-Tim Joint Venture.
The high court ruled in favour of Unik with reasons being that that the City’s failure to furnish reasons for disqualifying Unik’s tender was an irregularity justifying the setting aside of the award of the tender.
Following the judgement, the joint venture and MCC appealed and won the case, with the Court of Appeal last Friday ruling that the disqualification of Unik’s tender was not irregular.
“Procedural requirements are important in a tender process. The fact that the City did not give notice and furnish reasons for its decision within the time limit is lamentable but without practical significance within the factual context of this case.
“It does not result in irregularity and invalidity of the tender process. Costs must follow the result,” the appeal judgment said.
The decision was handed down by acting Judge of Appeal Court Justice Van Der Westhuizen.
Sometime in November 2019, this publication reported that after allegations emerged that the ruckus between then local government minister Litšoane Litšoane and the MCC – which saw both parties engaging in an acrimonious public spat – was actually motivated by a desire to have full control of the lucrative Mpilo Boulevard Intersections and Links project.
The project entails construction of new road links, vehicles’ flyover bridges, underpass, exclusive pedestrian bridges and signalisation.
It was shrouded in so much controversy that some councillors claimed an MCC city engineer was forced to resign amid allegations of corruption committed by unnamed people in the ministry.
Tendering for the project was opened in April and closed in mid-May 2019. Two months after the tendering process was done, Litšoane dissolved the MCC tender board and directed the Town Clerk to form a tender panel in line with Public Procurement Regulations (as amended in 2018).
This, Litšoane said he was doing because the councillors were working in cahoots with the tender board to award big tenders without taking into consideration the provisions of the Local Government Act. He also charged that councillors do not have the technical expertise to make informed decisions on tenders, as their mandate is only to shepherd the work of technocrats.
When theReporter asked him about the dissolution of the tender board and how it would affect progress that had been made on the Mpilo Boulevard Intersections and Links project, the minister went ballistic, telling this journalist that he had never at any point mentioned the project in a previous press statement and that he did not understand why the journalist wanted to talk about it.
In November 2020, the Maseru City Council (MCC) said it had no idea when the Mpilo Boulevard Intersections and Links Project would eventually commence as its hands were tied by the lawsuit challenging the tendering process to implement the project.
The amount of money involved in the project had always been a closely guarded secret ‘lest it tempted contesting contractors to manipulate their prices’.
The commercial court handed down an interim order, pending the final adjudication of the application, interdicting the tender winners from carrying on with construction work on the upgrade.
The then principal secretary of the ministry of local government and chieftainship affairs, Khothatso Tšooana, told Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee last year that former small business development, cooperatives and marketing minister Chalane Phori and then agriculture and food security minister Mahala Molapo had ordered him and MCC to award the tender to their preferred bidder.
Tšooana and then MCC Town Clerk Moeko Maboee told the PAC Phori had attempted to arm-twist them into awarding the tender to UNIK Construction Company.
Tšooana told the PAC that Phori was supported by former First Lady ‘Maesaiah Thabane and Molapo when he directed that the tender be awarded to UNIK.
Phori was later quoted in the media proclaiming that he wanted the tender awarded to Unik because he had submitted a joint bid with the Chinese-owned company for the project. He said he was also a businessman and he had jointly bid for the Mpilo tender with UNIK.
Tšooana also told the committee both ministers were acting in concert with the former First Lady.
Phori’s company, Tsoapo’s Brick Works, was Unik’s partner in its bid for the tender, according to the media reports.
Tšooana claimed Phori had argued that Unik should be awarded the tender as its former managing director, Yan John Xie, had provided financial support for the leader of All Basotho Convention, former Prime Minister Thomas Thabane while he was in exile in the South Africa from 2015 to 2017.
Xie is a controversial Chinese businessman who was appointed a trade and investment adviser to Thabane while he was premier between July 2017 and May 2020.
Earlier in April one local publication also indicated that in the papers filed before the Court of Appeal, the joint venture claimed Chief Justice could not nullify the tender because the issue of the Maseru council giving reasons for Unik’s immediate disqualification was not raised as grounds for review in the review application.
