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South Africa: Cipro Tender Under Attack – Again
Publish Date : 29-Oct-2009
The Companies and Intellectual Property Registration Office (Cipro) R153 million enterprise content management tender has come under fire again. This time, from the Democratic Alliance (DA), which is alleging the tender was rigged. Cipro, however, says it has addressed all allegations and the project will go ahead. The DA maintains, in a statement, that it is in possession of a sworn affidavit that contains allegations of tender rigging against Michael Twum-Darko, CIO of Cipro.
Cipro CEO Keith Sendwe and Valor IT chairman Josias Molele have both previously lashed out against allegations that procedures were not followed in the bid, and both stated that standard procedure was followed. Valor IT was awarded the tender to implement an end-to-end enterprise content management (ECM) solution at Cipro. The awarding of the 24-month deal to Valor IT was met with suspicion, and Cipro\'s decision was questioned.
The DA\'s statements follow calls by Mantra Consulting earlier this year for the voluntary suspension of the R153 million ECM bid. Mantra, which worked on the bid with Valor IT, claimed Valor IT has failed to meet its contractual obligations and has since taken legal action. The DA says the awarding of the tender to Valor IT has drawn the attention of the Auditor-General and the SAPS, and alleges a file has been handed to the National Prosecuting Authority for a decision to prosecute.
In the affidavit, Abe Mbulawa alleges that Twum-Darko and the CEO of Cipro, Keith Sendwe, met with him before the tender went out. He was then advised to partner with a closed corporation, by the name of Valor IT. He was also given the confidential business case, as well as the amount budgeted for the enterprise management project. The tender was eventually granted to Valor IT, to the value of R152.7 million. This is despite the fact that the tender amount for the second shortlisted company was only R60 million, says the DA.
