Questions surround prison deal

Why is Balfour protecting Bosasa? - Mail & Guardian Online: The ...

The Democratic Alliance on Wednesday questioned the way in which a catering contract was awarded by the correctional services department.

The matter is currently the subject of a Special Investigations Unit (SIU) probe.

The contract was for catering and training services in seven prisons - Pollsmoor, St Alban's, Krugersdorp, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban-Westville and Modderbee - and was to run for three years, DA spokesperson James Selfe told a media briefing.

It had been extended twice, once for a year, and once for a further six months.

The department, by its own admission, awarded this contract without having undertaken a feasibility study into whether such a contract was necessary, practical or cost-effective, he said.

Because no feasibility study had been undertaken, it was impossible to accurately determine what the successful contractor was expected to deliver, and therefore what attributes or "criteria" the successful contractor was expected to have to obtain the contract.

Fourteen companies participated in the bid process, of which five were disqualified on technical or procedural grounds.

Points awarded

The remaining nine bidders were evaluated by the committee in a two-stage process, one for "criteria", and one for price and for adherence to employment equity requirements.

However, the points allocated to price and to "criteria" were the same.

Selfe said the points allocated to the various companies for "criteria" were such that only two were competitive - Bosasa and Sechaba.

Sechaba submitted lower bids in respect of all management areas except one (Krugersdorp), where its bid was higher by R60 753 on a R14.7m annual contract.

In respect of all other management areas, its price was lower, and in some cases, considerably lower.

Overall, Sechaba's quote for the annual price of the contract was R617 911 011 compared to Bosasa's quote of R724 111 274, a full 17.1% lower, he said.

"And yet Bosasa was awarded the entire contract. The question arises, why?"

Small discount

The reason Bosasa obtained the entire contract was because it offered the department a small discount (amounting to 0.8% of the entire contract price or R1 942 727) to provide a "holistic" or uniform service to all seven management areas.

This was considerably less than the lower price offered by Sechaba, Selfe said.

The contract was extended in 2005, when it transpired that the contract as advertised did not include some satellite correctional centres within the management areas.

The contract was therefore administratively extended to include these other correctional centres at an additional annual cost to the taxpayers of R82,095,331.

The contract came to an end in July 2007 and was extended for a year because the department had not taken a policy decision about how to provide catering services at that stage.

In July 2008, Correctional Services Minister Ngconde Balfour wanted to extend it for a further year, but former national commissioner Vernie Petersen refused to do so, and extended it only for six months.

'Questions must be answered'

"Before it is re-awarded, it is essential that the unanswered questions which surround the award of the initial contract be answered."

Selfe said the correctional services portfolio committee was due to be briefed by the SIU on Tuesday on progress in its probe into the matter, but the meeting "was cancelled on the instructions of the ANC Chief Whip, for reasons which are not clear".
"Had the meeting taken place, I would have passed on to the SIU the information we are releasing today."

Selfe said he hoped the SIU would be able to answer these questions when it finalised its investigation.