By Eromosele Abiodun

Two industrial unions in the Nigerian maritime industry are set to cripple activities at the nation’s seaports Tuesday over a proposed amendment to the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) Act.

The protest, which would take place simultaneously in all the nation’s seaports, would be organised by the Maritime Workers Union of Nigeria (MWUN) and the Senior Staff Association of Communications, Transport and Corporation (SSACTAC), Maritime Branch.

Sources close to the unions told THISDAY that the protest was to force the hands of the National Assembly, which had refused to respond to their letter written last June, expressing opposition to the proposed amendment.

Already, the Ports and Harbours Authority Bill, 2015 which seeks to repeal the Nigerian Ports Authority Act 1955 as amended, has been passed by the Senate and is awaiting the concurrence of the House of Representatives.

The bill was sponsored by a member of the House of Representatives, Hon. Nicholas Ossai.

MWUN had petitioned the Speaker of the House of Representatives over the bill, saying that it would lead to massive job losses for NPA workers.

They also pointed out several economic and security implications of the bill if passed.

When contacted, Secretary General of the union, Mr. Felix Akingboye, confirmed the imminent protests but refused to give details.

He told THISDAY: “We are mobilising our members in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Onne, Warri and Calabar for the demonstration. It will hold simultaneously in all the ports from 6am to 6pm on Tuesday. We are opposed to any attempt to further strip Nigerians of our patrimony through further concession in the guise of amending the NPA Act 1955 as amended.

“The promoters of the Bill are only after their personal interests and this is to concession the harbour operations of NPA to private individuals, whereas, all over the world, harbour operation is an exclusive duty of government because of the security implications and huge revenue generation.”

According to him, “The proposed bill has great security and revenue risks for the federal government and it would lead to a mass sack of NPA workers. We have carefully perused the Bill and the existing NPA Act of 1955 as amended.

“We cannot see any deficiency in the present NPA Act that warranted the Bill except for the latent intention of its promoters to corner for themselves harbour operations, which are major revenue earners for the NPA and by extension the federal government without taking into consideration the security implications to the country.”

The government, he stated, should avoid the same mistakes of the ports’ concession of 2006 which led to the sack of 12,000 NPA workers.

The President General of MWUN, Mr. Adewale Adeyanju, said the workers would not allow politicians to further strip the ports through the bill.

“We are aware of their plans. When the bill was being debated they did not invite critical stakeholders. How can you be amending the Ports’ Act without taking the opinion of port workers? We are not going back on this.” he said

INTERVIEW

Washington, DC — Lesotho is the only independent nation in the world with its entire land mass above 1,000 meters (3,281 feet). Now the country, with a population of 2.1 million and a surface area the size of Belgium, has another distinction – a top-tier electronic visa program, joining only 13 other countries on the continent, according to the African Development Bank’s Visa Openness Index.

Launched on May 5 – making Lesotho the ninth nation , the platform was created by the Lesotho government in partnership with a U.S.-based, privately owned IT company, Computer Frontiers, with offices and tech staff in Ghana, Uganda and several other African capitals. During last month’s U.S. Africa Business Summit in Washington, DC, where Lesotho e-visa was on display, AllAfrica’s Noluthando Crockett-Ntonga discussed the platform with T’sepiso Mosasane , Lesotho’s acting director of Immigration in the Ministry of Home Affairs, and Computer Frontiers President Barbara Keating. The interview has been edited for clarity and length.

How is e-visa helping Lesotho?

T’sepiso Mosasane : It has eliminated most of the challenges that we were encountering regarding visas. We used to have a manual system, and there were lots and lots of problems.  Apart from that, we were losing out on investment and tourism because many people didn’t know how to access our visa.  And our country was not even known in the world because we didn’t know how to advertise.

How long does it take to get a visa for Lesotho?

T’sepiso Mosasane : 48 hours.

Barbara Keating: We have a call center and adjudication of the visas is done 24/7.

Usually visas are stamped into a passport at an embassy. How do recipients show they have an e-visa?

T’sepiso Mosasane : They print it out – it has their photo and the details.

Barbara Keating: And security codes.

Where did this idea originate?

Barbara Keating: We used to do visa processing for the U.S. government, which is fairly involved.  So we cut our teeth on that and knew there could be an improvement beyond how the Americans have done it. That’s what we now offer to African governments. Lesotho was the pioneer.  We were looking at smaller countries. We wanted a place that could really test it out. They were the first to adopt, which is brave on their part. There were many people saying, ‘Let’s not try this.’  Now, it’s a success. I really applaud them.

Do you advertise this and let people know that Lesotho is a beautiful country?

T’sepiso Mosasane : Computer Frontiers are doing the advertising for us.

How does that work, Barbara?

Barbara Keating: If you need a visa for Lesotho, you have to come to their website and there you see it. We’ve also advertise in travel magazines and newspapers. We have people who are working with South Africa, which is key since [South Africa] totally surrounds Lesotho!

How much does it cost to get a Lesotho visa?

T’sepiso Mosasane : Single entry visa is $150; multiple entries, $250.

Isn’t that a little steep?

Barbara Keating : No, it’s actually not.  It’s right in line with others.

How long did it take to create this platform?

Barbara Keating: The contract was awarded on the 1st of February and we launched the 5th of May.

How did you get into this, Barbara, and how large is your staff?

Barbara Keating: We started as a USAID contractor and then moved to work with the private sector. Today, we have about 120 people throughout Africa, and in the United States another 10 or so. Our approach is different from other providers, because we come from a development background.  We don’t just bring technology and dump it, as did the former contractor.  We train and bring people up to speed and are there with them. That’s the way to do it. If we do well, we also make money.

How does e-visa help you manage immigration for your government?

T’sepiso Mosasane : With this, we know how many people have come into our country and which countries they are from – for what purpose that they came to our country and how long they stayed. This will help us plan what to anticipate, where to develop our infrastructure.

Barbara Keating: Also for security, we know exactly when visitors come in. We know when they’ve left. We know if they haven’t left.

Along with tourists, the e-visa web site talks about serving “business persons seeking investment opportunities in Southern Africa.” Can this platform serve the region as well as your country, Lesotho?

T’sepiso Mosasane : We are trying as SADC [South African Development Community] that anyone who wants to visit any country in the region should just have one visa.

What lesson would you want to share from this project?

T’sepiso Mosasane : We have an excellent platform that is working for us. When we entered into this agreement, we didn’t have the money to do it. Governments often don’t have money. It was the service provider [Computer Frontiers] that invested in this, and they will be recovering their money as the time is going. With partnerships like this one that we have with Computer Frontiers, we can go far.

While the Department of Home Affairs is committed to resolving an impasse over officials’ working times on Saturdays, one of the unions it is negotiating with has a simple message: “Call us only when you are ready to pay overtime. Until then, there will be no work on Saturdays!”

This is the message of the National Union of Public Service and Allied Workers (Nupsaw).

This is a long-standing dispute, which dates back to March 2015.

Unions objected to officials working on Saturdays, which according to them would effectively mean they were required to work six days a week instead of five.

“This, according to the unions, meant extra transport costs for officials spread over 6 days, to cover Saturdays, and costs incurred towards caring for members’ minor children, as well as leave allocation,” read a statement from the department, issued last Thursday.

Unions reject offer

The department indicated that it was not in a financial position to accede to this demand and proposed that officials be granted a day off on Wednesdays to ensure that they do not work a six day week.

“In this way, officials would not incur additional transport costs and would be able to make appropriate arrangements for child care like other staff working a 5-day shift per week. The compromise would ensure also that fears around allocation and calculation of leave days would be allayed – with no official affected by whether they did a 5-day or 6-day shift.

“This would further mean that officials would work a full day on a Saturday comprising an 8-hour shift. Officials would still work a total of 40 hours per week, in line with the laws of the Republic.”

The unions – Nupsaw, Public Servants Association of South Africa (PSA) and the National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) – all rejected the offer.

Negotiations continued this week.

On Thursday, Nupsaw released a statement saying, until the department was “ready to pay overtime, the employer’s status quo of voluntary work on Saturdays remains”.

“Following this, Nupsaw made it clear to the employer not to convene another meeting until they are ready to pay overtime that will be in line with the Basic Conditions of Employment Act.”

Negotiations continue

However, Bongiwe Gambu, spokesperson for Home Affairs Minister Hlengiwe Mkhize, said the negotiations between the department and the unions were still ongoing.

“We are hopeful that by the end of the week we can have a clearer direction. Both parties remain committed to resolving the impasse,” she said.

She said the aim was for the department to provide South Africans with the services to which they were accustomed.

She said that currently a roll call was done on which officials were available to work on each coming Saturday, meaning they could never predict if the offices would be open on a Saturday. The department would communicate shortly before the weekend if the offices would be open to the public on Saturday.

“We are mindful that some people can only visit the offices on Saturdays,” she said. She asked for the public’s patience and requested that they try and visit the offices from Mondays to Fridays.

Zimbabwe is considering legalising the production of cannabis for medical purposes to lure investors keen to grow the drug, a cabinet minister says.

Investment Promotion Minister Obert Mpofu says a Canadian firm has applied to the government for a permit to produce the drug, known locally as mbanje, in one of the country’s soon-to-be-set-up Special Economic Zones (SEZs).

Numerous inquiries

“We have received numerous inquiries from investors who want to participate in the SEZs and one of them is a big international company that wants to be involved in the production of cannabis,” Mpofu was quoted as saying by the state-run Sunday News.

Zimbabwe is in the process of setting up SEZs, initially in Harare, Bulawayo and Victoria Falls. The zones will offer investors incentives, including exemption from some provisions of the labour law and black economic empowerment rules.

Big business

Mpofu told the paper that he thought the Canadian firm, which he didn’t name, was joking when he first received an inquiry from them. That was before he realised that medical cannabis production was big business.

“This company is from Canada and it’s one of the biggest conglomerates in that country and they are producing cannabis for medical purposes under strict conditions,” he said.

Punishable by jail

“I don’t see anything wrong and I think if we legalise (production of) mbanje we will benefit medically because it is used for pain killers such as morphine,” he added.

Under Zimbabwe’s laws the possession or cultivation of cannabis is illegal, punishable by jail.

In 2015 a Harare man – who was found by police to be growing small quantities of marijuana at home, apparently to treat a rare bone ailment – was jailed for 12 months, according to The Herald.

By Jeffrey Gogo

Imports of liquified petroleum gas (LP gas), mostly used as cooking fuel, have soared 67 percent to 2,5 million kg per month from 1,5 million kg per month a year ago, as consumers move away from polluting fuels, data from energy regulator ZERA shows.

Should Zimbabwe’s 600 000 domestic electricity users all make the switch to LP gas for their cooking and heating, the equivalent of 120 megawatts could be saved each year, Andrew Guri, a petroleum engineer with ZERA, told The Herald Business Friday, by phone.

As state power utility Zesa Holdings fails to meet 50 percent of the 1 900MW electricity demand from domestic generation, power outages have already forced thousands of urban households to turn to fuelwood, a key source of deforestation, and therefore, warming.

And in a country where 60 percent of citizens are not connected to the electricity grid, urban households already consume one to 3 tonnes of fuel-wood per year, and rural families more than double that, according to research by the University of Zimbabwe.

Now, it has become clearer that LP gas isn’t just a viable alternative, but perhaps the only gateway to keep the cookstoves firing, and to cut the 9,4 percent share of electricity in the average family of six total monthly spend.

“Households are adopting LP gas as an energy source of choice due to its increased acceptance as a clean, efficient, portable and modern energy form,” Guri said, in a separate email.

Since 2012, LP gas consumption has climbed 187 percent to 19 million kg in 2015, ZERA says, much of it used in the home for cooking and heating.

Still, consumers have been slow in migrating from a reliance on fuelwood or electricity. In the national energy mix, liquified petroleum gas, a fossil-derived fuel but one that burns cleanly, accounts for a one percent share, said ZERA’s Guri.

That compares with the 61 percent share for fuelwood and 13 percent for electricity, according to Energy Ministry data.

Dramatic impact

Combined with other national strategies aimed at boosting energy efficiency, such as ethanol blending and increasing investments in hydro and solar power, the switch to LP gas could have a dramatic impact on Zimbabwe’s climate goals.

In total, that will prevent the equivalent of 17 300 gigatonnes of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030, or a 33 percent cut by the same date, everything else in the economy remaining constant, according to a Government plan drawn up under the Paris Climate Agreement.

To undertake these specific interventions, the country will require global financial support of up to $7,24 billion, with Treasury meeting only a fraction of the costs.

Under the Paris Agreement, rich countries blamed for fuelling climate change, have agreed to fund such projects, but money has been trickling in very slowly with just about $10 billion channelled through the Green Climate Fund.

Here, the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority has already moved to fulfil some of the country’s pledges under the climate treaty.

In May, ZERA passed a law banning incandescent light bulbs, and other high energy consuming products such as fluorescent tubes, from being sold, made or imported into Zimbabwe.

The law would save Zimbabwe up to 40 megawatts of electricity, ZERA chief executive said then, as consumers move to low energy bulbs like LEDs and compact fluorescent.

The ultimate goal is to replace roughly one million filament bulbs in 164 000 households. In a year, the average Zimbabwean consumes just 2kg of LP gas, only a few cents worth, says Mr Guri, the ZERA petroleum engineer.

That’s five times below the per capita consumption of 10kg per year across Africa. Now, this is why Mr Guri believes LG gas use will grow rapidly here.

“There is significant opportunity for growth given that the current per capita LPG consumption for Zimbabwe is low,” he said.

“Zimbabwe can easily double its consumption in the next few years.”

Last Thursday, Michael Kelly, deputy managing director of the Paris based World Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association (WLPGA), an international association of wholesalers and retailers of the LPG, was in the country, seeking to woo the market.

He spoke about how Zimbabwe could gain market access to some of the world’s leading LP gas manufacturers and suppliers such as Total, ORYX Energies, Shell, Respsol and others, through WLPGA. The global association is looking to convert 1 billion people to LP gas by 2030.

Africa-wide, Zimbabwe doesn’t even register on the radar of countries utilising liquified petroleum gas.

At the top of consumers, you have got your Tunisia, Morocco Algeria, Libya and Egypt, where demand averages 55kg per person per year, according to WLPGA data.

Then somewhere far below you have Senegal, Cameroon, South Africa, Ghana, Nigeria and Cote d’Ivoire.

Ronald Ndoro, interim president of the nascent Zimbabwe Liquefied Petroleum Gas Association, which represents 20 wholesalers and retailers, said the aim was to ” . . . increase access to alternative and clean energy” in the country.

Issues of safety still ring loud. Wrongly used, handled, stored or transported, LP gas can be very dangerous because of its high inflammability, posing serious risks to human lives and property.

But through a law passed in 2014, ZERA has sought to provide some comfort.

“Since the law was gazetted, all the LP gas wholesalers are now licensed, retailers have been trained on LP gas standards and are in the process of acquiring their licences,” Mr Guri said, via email.

“ZERA continues to carry out awareness programmes on safe use of LP gas in the homes in the print and electronic media as well as at consumer engagement workshops countrywide.”

God is faithful.

TANZANIA has officially notified the UN cultural agency that execution of Stiegler’s Gorge hydroelectric project is inevitable.

The project at the Selous Game Reserve has triggered heated debate, with ecologists opposing it on grounds that its implementation could damage the World Heritage.

But, during the meeting of the World Heritage Committee (WHC) of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) in Poland last week, the government delegation gave the country’s firm position to execute the project.

The Permanent Secretary in the Natural Resources and Tourism Ministry, Major General Gaudence Milanzi, led the government team that also included Tanzania’s Ambassador to France Samwel Shelukindo who doubles as the permanent delegate to UNESCO.

The delegation consulted with senior officers of the World Heritage Centre and its Advisory Bodies on the matter and officially submitted a letter to the centre, expressing the country’s position. The ministry said in a statement in Dar es Salaam yesterday that Major General Milanzi argued before the committee that plans to build the dam have been on the government agenda since the 1960s.

The Selous Game Reserve covers 50,000 square kilometres, with the proposed project expected to use a mere three per cent of the area. The PS maintained that the Selous Game Reserve was inscribed in the World Heritage List with the project on the table.

“It should be noted that at the time of inscribing the reserve in 1982, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) considered that the Stiegler’s Gorge project was of no serious environmental concern, given the vast size of the property,” he argued.

He further pointed out that Tanzania has recently made a firm decision to industrialise the economy, significantly increasing the energy demand. “Given the current power generation options, it has been imperative to reconsider Stigler’s Gorge as the momentous power source,” charged Major General Milanzi.

He said at full capacity, the project would boost the total power production for the country by about 145 per cent. The project will upon completion benefit majority Tanzanians currently living without electricity.

It will also meet the increased industrial power demand in the country. Underscoring the country’s position, the PS said if well planned, executed and monitored, power projects like Stigler’s Gorge need not necessarily adversely impair conservation efforts.

Instead, by use of the best available technological options, planning and monitoring tools, the hydropower project stands to generate national wealth and improve the livelihoods and social wellbeing of local communities.

He also pointed out that despite the ‘no option’ conception for hydropower projects within or adjacent World Heritage sites, in reality demand for such projects continue to exist worldwide since they address basic socio-economic needs not only in Tanzania but also in other countries.

In delivering the statement, the PS emphasized that the message was to confirm to the WHC about Tanzania’s determination to proceed with the project, based on the principles of sustainable development.

But, he said the country was ready for further consultations to allow implementation of the project for the socio-economic and environmental well-being of the Game Reserve and all Tanzanians. Tanzania is a signatory to the World Heritage Convention of 1972.

Seven sites in Tanzania are inscribed in the list of the World Heritage List including the Selous Game Reserve and Ngorongoro Conservation Area. The country is currently a member of the WHC for the period of four years to 2019.

Since admitted in 2015, Tanzania has been pushing WHC to uphold the concept of sustainable development in the committee’s agenda and guidelines to allow physical development and optimal socio-economic developments with minimal possible adverse environmental impacts.

Maputo — The Budget Monitoring Forum (FMO), a coalition of Mozambican civil society organizations, on Wednesday submitted a request to the Constitutional Council, the highest body in matters of constitutional law, to declare unconstitutional the inclusion of the country’s “hidden debts” in the General State Accounts (CGE).

The debts in question are loans for over two billion US dollars to the security related companies Ematum (Mozambique Tuna Company), Proindicus and MAM (Mozambique Asset Management) obtained from the European banks Credit Suisse and VTB of Russia in 2013 and 2014 that were illicitly guaranteed by the government of the day, under President Armando Guebuza.

In April the Mozambican parliament, the Assembly of the Republic approved the CGE for 2015, in which the government included the Proindicus and MAM guarantees. For the government and the ruling Frelimo Party, including the guarantees was merely a statement of fact, but the opposition parties denounced it as a way of legalising illegal and unconstitutional debts.

They called for the 2015 CGE to be declared unconstitutional, and also the 2014 CGE which had included the guarantee for Ematum. The FMO had reached the same conclusion.

For a civil society organisation to request a ruling from the Constitutional Council it must submit a petition signed by at least 2,000 citizens. The FMO collected the requisite number of signatures, and submitted the petition on Wednesday morning.

Speaking at a press conference later in the day, FMO representative Denise Namburete said she hoped that by Thursday the Council would notify the FMO as to whether there are any irregularities in the request, so that these could be corrected.

Namburete also insisted that the government should give a public undertaking that it would not use tax revenue to pay the “hidden debts”. Since mid-2016, Proindicus and MAM have been defaulting on these debts, and the government has not stepped in to pay. Neither has the government paid interest owed to the Ematum bondholders, even though the original Ematum bond was replaced by government sovereign bonds.

“We want the Constitutional Council to declare that including the hidden debts in the CGEs of 2014 and 2015 was unconstitutional”, she said. However, the current petition to the Council only specifically mentions the Ematum debt, since the 2015 GCE, with its references to the Proindicus and MAM debts, has not yet been published in the official gazette, the “Boletim da Republica”.

But Namburete promised that, when the 2015 CGE did appear in the gazette, the FMO would lodge a second petition with the Council.

The FMO is also demanding that the full audit report by the company Kroll should be published and made accessible to all Mozambicans. Kroll was hired by the Attorney-General’s Office (PGR) to audit Ematum, Proindicus and MAM, and the PGR published the executive summary of its report on 24 June. The full report should be made public within 90 days.

“The FMO questions the public usefulness of Ematum, MAM and Proindicus”, declared Namburete, “and repudiates the acts and attitudes of the actors described in the Kroll report. We stress that no assets belonging to Mozambicans – whether they are financial, or natural resources, or any other type – should be used to pay criminal debts”.

The FMO noted that the Kroll report suggested that the financial engineering involved in setting up the three companies is not linked to any coherent national development project.

Asmara — At the 41 Session of the World Heritage Committee that took place on 7 July in Karkow, Poland, in which the President of Poland, Mr. Andrzej Duda and Irene Bokova, Director General of UNESCO, Ministers and high level officials as well as more than 1000 governmental and non-governmental representatives took part Asmara was inscribed UNESCO World heritage.

In a speech she delivered during the event representing the Eritrean Government, Ambassador Hanna Simon, Eritrean Ambassador to France and Permanent Representative to UNESCO, stated that the inscription of Asmara city onto the UNESCO World Heritage List is a symbol of pride and achievement for the Eritrean people and shoulders the responsibility to maintain its status.

Asmara’s inclusion on the World Heritage List for its outstanding modernist art-deco, at least 15 historical architectures as well as urban planning and its exceptional testimony of the universal aspiration for and attainment of national self-determination goes beyond merely pursuing international recognition for its cultural assets.

The Eritrean government delegation presided by Ambassador Hanna Simon, Eritrean Ambassador to France and Permanent Representative to UNESCO, Engineer Tesfalem Weldemichael head of technical department in the central region, Engineer Medhanie Teklemaryam Coordinator of Asmara Heritage Project, Mr. Yared Tesfay Director of Media Affairs at the Embassy of the State of Eritrea to UK and Ireland and Dr. Edward Denison, a researcher on Asmara Heritage Project are participating at the 41st Session of the World Heritage Committee currently taking place in Krakow, Poland from July 2nd – 12th 2017.

It’s to be recalled that in December 2016, the Asmara Heritage Project (AHP) won the Royal Institute of British Architectures (RIBA) President’s Medal for Research, an exceptional honor and testimony on the world-class standard of research conducted by the AHP in preparation for the nomination of ‘Asmara: Africa’s Modernist City’ as a world heritage site.

Asmara’s inscription onto the World Heritage List will potentially benefit Eritrea in the tourism sector.

1,053 world heritage sites from 165 countries have been inscribed in the UNESCO World Heritage List until July 2017 and that 815 of them are cultural, 203 natural and 35 are combination of both.

The World heritage sites of which 499 are located in Europe and America, 247 in Asia and Pacific, 138 in Latin America and Caribbean, 90 in Africa and 81 in Arab countries.

By Elias Mambo

The District Development Fund (DDF), which falls under the Office of the President and Cabinet, flouted State Procurement Board (SPB) regulations when it handpicked several companies, believed to be politically-connected, and awarded them contracts to repair roads around the provinces without written contracts or going through tender processes.

A check by the Zimbabwe Independent revealed that while most beneficiary companies’ files were missing from the Companies Registry, one of the companies, Haingate, listed Tichaona Danny Kasukuwere as a director. He is Zanu PF national political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere’s young brother.

According to Auditor-General Mildred Chiri’s report on appropriation accounts, finance and revenue statements and fund accounts, the DDF “engaged a number of contractors namely Haingate, Fuel Africa, Shogun and Steps and Paths, to mention a few for road maintenance throughout the provinces.”

“However, at the time of audit, the Fund could not avail the contracts/agreements documents pertaining to the contracts entered into between the Fund and the contractors even though the contracts were of considerable amounts,” states the report.

The report also says: “Requisition vouchers were used as basis for hiring equipment without entering into a formal contract.”

Information gathered shows that Haingate, whose directors also include a prominent local lawyer and Juliet Nyarai Mapurisa, was awarded road maintenance contracts in Manicaland, Mupatsi-Chikomba district, Mashonaland Central as well as the Mushumbi Road. The projects were valued at US$142 000. Tichaona Danny Kasukuwere confirmed his company was engaged by the DDF, but said this was because it was on the registered suppliers’ list for government.

“We have always been on the list of registered suppliers on a hire basis to government,” said Kasukuwere.

“In 2015 we renewed our registration on the hire of equipment and tipper trucks and this was gazetted in 2016.”

Steps and Paths, whose registration number is 18193/2003, had no other information with regards to its directorship at the Companies Registry offices. It was awarded contracts to repair Luseche Road, Litshe Road in Umguza.

Fuel Africa (9781/08) also had no documents or file at the registry offices, but was awarded contracts to repair Charara-Kanyati and Makoni roads.

“This was contrary to the provisions of section 32 (1) (c) (vii) of the Procurement Act (chapter 22:14) which states that terms and conditions of procurement contracts to the extent that they are known to procuring entity shall be specified,” reads the report.

Chiri, according to the reports, says she was not convinced that the contractors were being effectively supervised in the absence of written agreements between the parties concerned specifying among other things the deliverables, type of machinery to be used, duration and the penalties involved and the cost of the project.

The report also says besides flouting procurement regulations, DDF awarded the companies road maintenance work which surpassed US$10 000 without following the informal tender procedures.

“The State Procurement Board circular No.1 of 2015 for goods and services which stipulated that the informal tender value threshold should be more than US$10 000 and below or equal to US$500 000 was not adhered to,” reads the report.

The report recommended that the DDF “should observe the State Procurement Board regulations when conducting its procurement and that the officials should be trained in order to appreciate all legislative provisions relating to their duties”.

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