The ailing SA Post Office’s (SAPO) acquisition of a 10-year-lease costing around R161 million, in 2010, at the lavish Eco Point Office Park in Centurion was tainted with irregularities and corruption, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said on Tuesday.
“At the outset of the process, SAPO failed to ensure proper demand management before the acquisition of the Eco Point Office Park as the business case on which the board relied on included misrepresentation of facts and falsified information regarding structural defects in the National Postal Centre where SAPO was accommodated at the time,” Madonsela told reporters in Pretoria.
“SAPO further conceded that in violation of the PFMA (Public Finance Management Act), the relocation to the Eco Point Office Park had not been captured in its strategic plan for the year 2009/2010.”
Madonsela said the SAPO board further failed to ensure that the acquisition of the Eco Point Office Park building was preceded by a competitive bidding process, which was in violation of the PFMA and its corporate procurement policy of 2009.
“The procurement of the lease for the Eco Point Office Park building was therefore not fair, equitable, transparent, competitive and cost effective as required by section 217 of the Constitution read with paragraph 3.1 of the SAPO Procurement Policy,” she said.
“The failure by SAPO to follow proper bidding process could not be justified under permissible deviations in terms of the SAPO Policy and the PFMA as there was no urgency and the Eco Point building was not the only building available to justify a single source deviation. The acquisition of the Eco Point Office Park was accordingly unlawful.”
Madonsela was probing allegations of maladministration and improper conduct at the SAPO. The investigation followed complaints lodged by the Communication Workers Union in 2011.
Titled “Postponed Delivery”, the period covered by the investigation is restricted to transactions and conduct that took place between April 2002 and September 2012.
– African News Agency (ANA)
