COVID-19

16 August 2018

The Bitou Municipality acknowledges that we operate in an environment where corruption and maladministration is rife. The Municipality also welcomes individuals and organizations like the Plett ratepayers associations who are willing to come forward and report cases of suspected corrupt activities. Hence, the municipality is proud of its slogan that says, to be the best together.

The Bitou Municipality prides itself in following the correct Supply Chain Procedures and abide by the pieces of legislation that governs the procurement of services, in particular the Preferential Procurement Policy Framework Act, 2000 (Act No. 5 of 2000). The Municipal Finance Management Act, No. 56 of 2003 and the Municipal Supply Chain Management Regulations that requires the municipality to ensure that the necessary checks and balances are in place to ensure clean and transparent governance of all financial matters including procurement and awarding of tenders.

The municipality will want to state it very clear that we have not identified any elements of fraud or corruption relating to the awarding of this tender. We will appreciate if the rates payers association can report any evidence they have of fraud of corruption to relevant authorities. The tender was awarded based on the submission made by the bidders and the successful bidders met all the standard requirement as stipulated in the bid, During the implementation it was discovered that the Electrical Department did not replace all the old meters as planned and as a result some of the meters will not be able to vend. The Municipal Manager engaged the services provider in this regard and they made sure that all the consumers are able to vend without any additional charges from the municipality.

The process for the changing of meters is extremely critical and the municipality have been engaged in this process since 2014. The expectation was the Electrical Team will have completed the replacement of this meters by June 2017. The municipality will continue with the replacement as planned and we hope with the new team in the Engineering section this will improve our operations in this regard.

In closing, the Municipality want to give assurance that the tender was issued and awarded through the correct procedures and there was no traces of corruption within the entire process. This conclusion was reached after consulting the relevant internal role players and also having studied the relevant tender documents and bids submitted. All this information is available and can be obtained through following the correct channels as provided by the Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000(PAIA)

Media Enquiries: James Sijama

Mobile: 062 183 9668

Tel: 044 501 3006

E-mail: Jsijama@plett.gov.za

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