The Tshwane Metro has placed five senior officials on precautionary suspension with full pay pending a review of a recent labour court ruling for the controversial Rooiwal tender award.

City of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality Manager Johann Mettler said the decision to suspend the officials was in light of the nature and severity of the charges, and that the trust relationship between them and the municipality had broken down irretrievably.

“The officials are senior employees of the municipality, and the majority of them on the BEC (Bid Evaluation Committee) are engineers and ought to have applied themselves properly when evaluating the tender regarding the belt pressers”, Mettler said.

Municipality disagree with disciplinary hearing outcome

The suspension follows a year-long internal disciplinary process that found the officials guilty of one of the four charges they faced, according to Tshwane Metro spokesperson Selby Bokaba.

Bokaba said the metro is of the view that the officials’ presence at the workplace will be detrimental to the stability of the municipality.

The officials are charged with being grossly negligent in the performance of their duties and it is believed that their conduct subsequently led to a breach of various legislation, policies, and codes of conduct.

Bokaba said the officials would remain suspended pending a review of the ruling.

“Tshwane issued the five officials with an intended letter of suspension on Wednesday and [they] were afforded the opportunity to make representations on why they shouldn’t be suspended. A final determination was made Friday, April 19 to place them on precautionary suspension with full pay.”

Bokaba said the chairperson of the disciplinary committee recommended that the five officials be suspended for one month without pay but the metro disagreed with his ruling.

He said the metro disagreed with the outcome of the disciplinary process and resolved to appeal the entire outcome at the Labour Court.

The officials faced the following charges:

-Allowing Blackhead Consulting to proceed to the next stage of the evaluation without being registered with the Construction Industry Development Board (CIDB).

-Consensus-based decision-making instead of evaluating independently as members of the BEC.

-Inclusion of Blackhead Consulting to render professional services in circumstances where the city had already appointed a company to render professional services.

-Evaluating the winning bidder on a 1,4m belt press width when the specification required a 2m width.

*It is unclear on which charge they were found guilty.

Rooiwal treatment works linked to recent cholera outbreaks

The Rooiwal Wastewater Treatment Works remains controversial with alleged links to recent cholera outbreaks, including an outbreak that killed over 20 people in Hammanskraal.

In 2019 an R295-million tender to upgrade the treatment works’ infrastructure was awarded to businessman Edwin Sodi. The contract was later terminated before it was completed.

The Special Investigating Unit has since investigated the refurbishment of the project and only 60% of the first phase was completed before it was abandoned in 2020.

Recently, the Department of Water and Sanitation stated that households supplied by the Rooiwal plant will be able to get consistent, reliable, and clean water in their homes by September.

No quick fix for Rooiwal treatment plant

Tshwane mayor Cilliers Brink said upgrading Rooiwal is a long-term project.

“We saw the progress… The site is being secured and the fence is being built. The sedimentation tank is being emptied. We are not saying we have arrived at what we want, because we have to monitor this very closely,” he said, adding that there are some risks, with security being the major one.

Brink said “We want to avoid some of the mistakes made in the past that compromised contractors.”