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NewsDay

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Vungu council flouts tender procedures

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A probe carried out last year has revealed that Vungu Rural District Council (VRDC) flouted tender procedures and that a government ministry and Gweru council were illegally interfering in the affairs of the local authority.

GWERU — A probe carried out last year has revealed that Vungu Rural District Council (VRDC) flouted tender procedures and that a government ministry and Gweru council were illegally interfering in the affairs of the local authority.

STEPHEN CHADENGA

The probe report dated September 12 2012 and shown to NewsDay last week alleges that VRDC ignored tender procedures when it awarded its conservancy for management to a safari company after only two competitors submitted their tender bids instead of three.

“VRDC flouted tender procedures in that when it awarded the tender to Lenton Safaris to manage its conservancy, only two competitors turned up instead of at least three,” the report reveals.

The report further shows that the local authority awarded a road maintenance tender on the Insukamini Road to one company called Ransburg who had tendered its bid with another competitor, Wellbroom, instead of three contenders.

The report also shows that tender quotations were not done by a tender committee as is the norm, but by a council official. “In all cases, tender quotations  should be done by the tender board committee, but instead were handpicked by Mrs Tanaka Maheru, the council’s  human resources officer, flouting tender procedures,” the report alleges.

The report by a five-member probe team chaired by Mashonaland West Provincial Administrator Christopher Shumba resulted in the suspension of VRDC chief executive Wellington Ngulube last year.

Ngulube has since engaged lawyers to fight his suspension, arguing that he is being sacrificed after exposing corruption at the Midlands Provincial Administration Office and Lands ministry for interfering in the affairs of VRDC.