The defence in a corruption trial involving the former mayor of eThekwini Municipality, Zandile Gumede, has asked a State witness to bring to the Durban High Court on Friday a document which details her job description as it schooled her on 2017 supply chain management (SCM) policies.
Advocate Jay Naidoo, counsel for Gumede and Allan Robert Abbu, former deputy head of the Durban Solid Waste (DSW) unit, read out the 2017 SCM policies and other sections, focusing on Section 36, which spoke about deviating from normal tender processes.
Abbu, Gumede, and 20 others are on trial for fraud, corruption, and contravention of the Municipal Finance Management Act and the Municipal Systems Act concerning a R300 million DSW contract.
Section 36 said the city manager has the authority to deviate from the normal tender procedures where it is impossible and impractical to do so.
Naidoo, who read out the policy, said the city manager would need to record the reasons why he deviated from normal procedures and report them to the next council meeting.
He also said the city manager would need to record that in the municipality’s annual financial statement. He asked the witness, who we cannot name as per court order, who is currently the contract administrator in the municipality, and she said yes.
“This is what the policy says, but in practice, we normally start at the council,” the witness added.
Naidoo put it to her that she was wrong. “You don’t understand how Section 36 works,” he said.
The witness, who testified virtually, said she did not have a problem with Naidoo disputing what she was saying; she was mainly explaining how things are done in eThekwini.
Before Naidoo and the witness could agree on this, he had asked her if she knew the SCM policy, and she said yes.
The witness kept on saying the jobs of a contract officer, which was her previous position, and contract administrator in eThekwini are almost similar. She said that to do both these jobs, one must know the SCM policy.
As a result, Naidoo asked her to bring the job descriptions of both contract officer and contract administrator.
In this trial, the court has heard that Section 36 was implemented to extend the contracts of ILanga la Mahlase PTY (LTD), Uzuzinekele Trading 31 cc, Omphile Thabang Projects, and El Shaddai Holdings Group cc, which are also charged in this matter.
The cross-examination was interrupted by a bad network, and the matter will continue on Friday.