SANRAL appoints DBSA to deliver on cancelled tenders

The Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, and the Board of the South African National Roads Agency SOC Limited (SANRAL) announced that an agreement has been reached with the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to act as the infrastructure procurement and delivery management support agency on five strategic projects whose awards the Board declined to approve in May.

Minister Mbalula said that  SANRAL took the nation into confidence in the precautionary measures it took when it declined to award a number of tenders as a result of lapses in due process. The Board of SANRAL is bound by its fiduciary duties which, amongst others, enjoin it to act with fidelity, honesty, integrity and in the best interest of the company at all times.

“Turning a blind eye to what would have resulted in irregular expenditure and possible litigation, that would have held up some of these projects in courts for years, would have amounted to dereliction of duty on the part of the Board”, he said.

“In appreciating the strategic nature of the affected projects and their importance in giving momentum to economic reconstruction and recovery, I have impressed on the Board the need to move with speed in addressing the anomalies and award these tenders in a manner that is transparent and fair,” he added.

Mbalula further said he was pleased that the Board has moved with the necessary speed to address the due process lapses, with a clear plan on how to finalise the award of these tenders within the shortest possible time.

The Board, through its oversight mechanism, identified the flouting of due process and moved with speed to act, in order to preserve the integrity of the tenders.

The SANRAL Board Chairperson, Mr Themba Mhambi, said: “It must be noted that the DBSA was not in any way involved in the design, cost estimation and tender documentation stages of the cancelled tenders. This should reassure all interested parties and the public about the integrity and independence of the new procurement processes for the projects. DBSA’s profile and record in regard to matters of this nature speak for itself”.

All the above procurement phases will be subjected to probity checks.

The planned timeline for the execution of this phase of the work is:

• There was a Procurement Project Inception Meeting and the development of a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) in June.
• In July and August, the project team will be mobilised and information gathered, there will be a review of bid specifications, the approval of bid specifications and adverts, the advertisement of tenders, the receipt of bids, bid evaluation and bid adjudication. “Interested parties are therefore advised that the adverts for the tenders will be released during the course of July and they should therefore be on the lookout for them.
• In September, there will be the submission of bid evaluation and adjudication report to SANRAL, SANRAL Board consideration of recommendations, followed by the awarding of the tenders.

Once the tenders are awarded and SANRAL’s Project Managers and Consultants begin to supervise contractor performance and project delivery, the DBSA’s role will change to project oversight on behalf of the Board, with regular reporting to the Board to ensure that these projects receive ongoing Board monitoring and support.