By Deon de Lange
Western Cape Premier Helen Zille says she will not resign following reports that the Public Protector has provisionally found the province’s controversial communications tender was invalid.
Zille had earlier undertaken to resign if any “corruption” was found to have taken place in awarding the two- year branding and communications contract to leading marketing firm, TBWA Hunt Lascaris, in 2011.
But in her response on Sunday, Zille noted that Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s “draft report” had found “no corruption whatsoever”.
She also disputed several “findings” in the interim report and threatened to challenge these in the High Court unless they were excised from Madonsela’s final report, due out at the end of the month.
“There are, of course, the inevitable calls for me to resign as a result of the Public Protector’s draft report.
“I had undertaken to resign if the tender was found to be corrupt. It is common cause that there was no corruption whatsoever and I regard these resignation calls as the normal political posturing that should be treated as such,” Zille wrote in her online newsletter on Sunday.
Madonsela’s spokeswoman, Kgalalelo Masibi, told the Cape Argus on Sunday that the Public Protector “does not comment on provisional reports, as they are confidential”.
“The Public Protector also does not make ‘findings’ in provisional reports, but ‘observations’, which are invitations to the relevant parties to comment (further) on the matters raised.
“The Public Protector has granted the extension for comments to May 18 and intends to release the final report on May 31,” she added.
The DA leader came under fire last year after the Sunday Times revealed that her own provincial treasury had raised concerns about the process followed in awarding the province-wide branding and communications contract, valued at between R50 million and R70m.
Concerns focused on the role that Zille’s special advisers, Ryan Coetzee and Gavin Davis, had played in the process after it came to light that they had assisted provincial communications chief, Nick Clelland-Stokes, in drafting the criteria for the tender.It was also revealed that they had served on the tender evaluation committee in alleged contravention of treasury rules.
At the time, critics accused Zille of practising “cadre deployment” – an ANC appointment policy she has frequently criticised – by allowing her political advisers to serve on the committee. But the DA leader said she had been unaware of Coetzee’s role in the process and that “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”.
Quoting from a leaked copy of Madonsela’s interim report, newspapers reported that that Coetzee’s and Davis’s involvement in the process had constituted “improper conduct and maladministration”.
The report states that the process followed in awarding the deal was “unlawful”, thus rendering the “entire procurement process invalid”.
Madonsela suggested that the conduct of the director general in the premier’s office, Brent Gerber, who asked Coetzee and Davis to become involved, was “unlawful, improper” and amounted to “maladministration”. Gerber declined to comment on Sunday.
Significantly, Madonsela’s report is understood to exonerate Zille, but recommends that Gerber “immediately terminate the further execution of the invalid agreement”.
“No evidence or information was presented or found… indicating that the premier was in any manner involved in the procurement process,” the report is quoted as saying.
Political Bureau
The Guardian 