 Zille vows to ‘quit’ if tender out of order Democratic Alliance leader Helen Zille again promised yesterday to resign as Western Cape premier if indeed there had been corruption or any irregularities in the awarding of the provincial government’s multimillion-rand communications tender. The Sunday Times reported at the weekend that the provincial government awarded a tender to advertising agency TBWA Hunt Lascaris without following proper tender procedures, including failing to advertise the tenders. Earlier this week the African National Congress (ANC) in the province called on the public protector to investigate, and for Ms Zille "to come clean". Speaking during a press conference that lasted for almost two hours yesterday, Ms Zille was at pains to point out that all processes were followed. She even handed out dense documents from the provincial treasury and drew up time lines to illustrate every stage of the tender process leading to the contract. Ms Zille said someone with a "hidden agenda" had selectively leaked the tender documents in an effort to discredit the provincial government. "Someone with an axe to grind leaked one selected document out of a whole process to give the impression that there had been a breach of regulations or some sort of corruption where there was none." It was "one document out of many which sought to give the impression of irregularities" or even of corruption, "which was not the case". However, she acknowledged that the provincial treasury had initially raised concerns over the contract being "transversal", which meant it would apply to all provincial government departments and not just the department of the premier. "We have identified shortcomings in our supply chain management processes and are rectifying these. All the information I have shared with you today is testament to this government’s commitment to accountability and transparency to the people we serve," Ms Zille said. But ANC provincial secretary Songezo Mjongile said yesterday that treasury documents illustrated wasteful expenditure and "that is why we have called on the public protector to intervene". "Helen must come clean, we must check the relationship between Ryan Coetzee and the communications company … we genuinely believe it’s a case of you scratch my back and I will scratch yours … there is a case of paying back big business in the Western Cape." [email protected] -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . |
