Digital Vibes won a R150m tender after resubmitting its bidding documents that had been incomplete when it initially made the submission, according to testimony this week from a Health Department deputy director in the supply chain office.
Sifiso Dlamini was the third witness to take the stand in the graft case involving Popo Maja, the department’s former communications director, who faces two counts of corruption and is accused of using his influence to channel a R150m tender to Digital Vibes.
Maja sat on the bid specification and evaluation committees when Digital Vibes was awarded the tender. He was allegedly paid R15 000 by the company, reports News24.
Dlamini told the Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crime Court that the closing date for tender submissions was 14 October 2019, at which point Digital Vibes had submitted its application, but with an error: a central supplier certificate was not included in the submission.
“On 23 October 2019, we found the error and I told the bid evaluation committee it could not evaluate the tender because([it did) not meet the criteria. They agreed to reissue the tender after the changes were made.”
Part of Dlamini’s duties entailed assuming secretariat duties during these committee meetings, after which he would prepare the bid evaluations.
The bid evaluation committee consisted of Anban Pillay, Shireen Pardesi, Reginald Ngcobo – from the Department of Agriculture – Senzeni Ngubane, from government communications, and Maja, the head of communications.
Advocate Phumla Dwane walked Dlamini through a report on the committee’s proceedings, outcomes, and recommendations regarding the communications tender.
The report included individual score sheets, and comments during the evaluation process for Digital Vibes and a second company, Brandswell.
He said Maja and the other committee members endorsed the report, which was prejudicial towards Brandswell after it was deemed not to have achieved the minimum threshold of 60% functionality.
Dlamini said the report was signed by all of the members, and that Ngubane scored down Brandswell’s prerequisite categories to carry out the communication functions of the tender being applied for. He added that if this had not happened, Brandswell would have met the 60-point threshold and progressed to the next stage.
Dwane referred Dlamini to an agenda dated 23 October 2019, where an error in Digital Vibe’s bidding documents was picked up.
Dlamini had informed the committee about the error, which would have prevented it from evaluating the tender because it lacked an evaluation criterion.
He said part of his department’s duties was to pre-screen bids, including those of Digital Vibes and Brandswell. He said his department received two bidding documents, one from each company, before checking whether they were registered in the department’s supplier database.
They found that Digital Vibes’ bid documents consisted only of a central supplier database number, but not a certificate.
He said this error was discovered after the tender’s closing date of 14 October 2019, leading to the reopening of the applications for the tender and the extension of the deadline to 30 October 2019.
“The tender was closed and then reopened and reissued to the two bidders, Digital Vibes and Brandswell.”
His department pre-screened both companies’ bid documents again before the committee met again in November 2019, where he said Maja had scored 5s for Digital Vibes in the categories of communication functionality related to the tender.
But, Dlamini said, Maja scored 4s for Brandswell, commenting that “it did not have extensive knowledge on social media communication”.
The trial was adjourned and postponed to 28 July, when Dlamini is expected to continue with his testimony.
See more from MedicalBrief archives:
Digital Vibes case postponed as accused seeks pension to pay lawyers
Digital Vibes-linked official’s case postponed
Health Department director charged with corruption in Digital Vibes case