Politicians have again lashed out at officials for the “abuse” of controversial Section 36 spending, after a report released showed that nearly R112 million was spent in November 2011 alone.
|||Politicians have again lashed out at city officials for the “abuse” of controversial Section 36 spending, after a report released this week showed that nearly R112 million was spent in November 2011 alone.
Since the beginning of the 2011/12 year, R667.2m has been spent using Section 36, which allows for the breach of the regular tender process under certain conditions, including for emergency spending and when the product is only available from a single supplier. However, parties have long criticised the council for continued use of this section – and this is likely to heighten following this week’s revelations.
“Section 36 is being used as a scapegoat for laziness on the part of the officials,” said Finance and Procurement Committee chairwoman Fawzia Peer on Thursday.
“This is absolute abuse.”
According to the report presented before the committee, Durban Solid Waste spent almost half of the R112m on the extension of various contracts, valued at a total of R54.4m.
The City Fleet Department spent R27.3m on four contracts and the Communications Department spent R14m on 34 different contracts, related mainly to advertising and marketing ahead of the COP17 conference in December.
Of the R14m, R5.2m went to Independent Newspapers.
In total, from July 2011 until the end of November 2011, R667.2m has been spent using Section 36. During the same period in the 2010/11 financial year, R114.7m worth of contracts were awarded.
In November 2011, 58 contracts were awarded using Section 36 and only 100 after a public tender process.
Peer was also concerned about who got the contracts.
“You find that Section 36 is used to hire a company and then you find that company can’t do the job. So you have to go back to tender and spend more money. It’s just not on,” she said, adding that she was concerned that the tenders seemed to go to the same companies each time.
DA councillor Dean Macpherson said that unless something was done to rein in departments, the situation could worsen.
“We’re standing at close to R700m up to November and all indications are that Section 36 spending will top R1 billion by the end of the financial year. The fact that this is allowed to continue creates the perception that the ANC is unable and unwilling to deal with it, and this is because their comrades and cronies are receiving these contracts. And I agree with the committee chair (Peer) that it’s the same people getting these contracts time and again for the past three or four years.”
The DA has pushed for a R1m cap to be put on Section 36 tenders, which appears to have some support from within the council.
However, Macpherson said it would require support from the ANC to have this included because of their majority in council, and “my feeling is that it will be a rough road trying to get it implemented”.
The cap, he added, would have a clause written in so that genuine emergency spending, such as in the case of storm damage, would be exempt.
“As long as the ANC is unwilling to commit to cutting down on the awarding of Section 36 awards, we’ll continue to see more of the same.” - Sunday Tribune