Cape Town — Mayor Helen Zille has agreed to appoint an independent auditor to investigate the awarding of a R25 million tender for the provision of operators for the CCTV's surveillance room to the security company of its former metro police chief and current safety and security advisor, Mark Sangster.

News of the awarding of the multimillion rand tender to Sangster's security company was revealed in a Cape Argus investigation earlier this week, when the city denied insider knowledge had put Sangster at an advantage for winning the bid.

And today (Thursday), the ANC is expected to table an urgent motion before the council's safety and security committee calling for the full disclosure of the tender documents.

The ANC's Werner Schwella said he found it suspicious that the city's bid evaluation committee had called for two legal opinions before recommending Orbis Security Solutions for the tender.

Schwella said he had been denied copies of the tender documents when he requested them after the Cape Argus report on Monday.

On Wednesday the city's multi-party forum (the ruling coalition excluding the DA) appealed to Zille to conduct an audit of the tender.

Zille responded: "I will ask the independent auditors to establish whether the tender process fully conformed with the Municipal Financial Management Act and Council's Supply Chain Management Policy, and whether there was any unfair advantage given to Mr Sangster's company, or any possible conflict of interests involved."

Zille said the terms of reference of the investigation would be formulated in consultation with the multiparty government and released once decided.

The findings would be made known to the full council.

Orbis Security Solutions will be paid just more than R1-million a month for the next two years to provide operators for the city's CCTV network.

Sangster was hired as a security advisor to city manager Achmat Ebrahim several months ago.

In March he produced an integrated master plan on addressing the shortcomings in the city's CCTV network and expanding it before 2010.

Awarding the tender almost two weeks ago, the city's bid adjudication committee said that in future, CCTV management, operation and functionality had to be removed from the scope of Sangster's duties as a security consultant to the city.

But the ANC has said the situation still amounted to a conflict of interest and a situation of "jobs for pals".

The city's director of supply chain management, Leonard Shnaps, has said that Sangster's consultancy work for the city did not preclude his businesses from tendering for other work in the city, while Ebrahim has said that the tender award would not amount to a conflict of interest.

The tender secretariat received 67 bids for the contract, but only two were responsive.

Sangster has declined to comment on the furore.

He started Orbis Security Solutions after accepting a severance package during a re-structuring exercise of the ANC in 2005 to vacate his post as the city's first police chief.

His company also holds a major contract with the Claremont city-improvement district for security services.