Herald Correspondent
FOUR Harare City officials who allegedly awarded a US$9 million tender to Juluka Endo company for streetlight rehabilitation without following proper procedures were yesterday denied bail by Harare regional magistrate Marehwanazvo Gofa.
Never Murerwa (62), Jabulani Mukomazi (44), Denford Zhungu (69) and Tawanda Mutenhabundo (29) are facing charges of criminal abuse of office for awarding the contract to a company that had been deemed to be ineligible.
Mrs Gofa ruled that the accused persons would jeopardise ongoing investigations if released on bail.
The investigating officer had said the four once misrepresented that requested documents were with Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe while they were in their offices.
The magistrate noted that the chief executive of PRAZ never wrote an authorisation to the accused persons to re-tender for Juluka Endo.
Mrs Gofa noted that the investigating officer said the call history of the accused persons' cellphones indicated that the suspects were chatting with people like Mike Chimombe and Moses Mpofu, with Mpofu as the largest shareholder of Juluka Endo. She said Chimombe and Mpofu were denied bail on fraud charges arising from the Presidential Goat Scheme, hence the four were not good candidates of bail.
The four were remanded to August 7 for routine remand.
It is the State's case that in January this year, City of Harare resolved to rehabilitate streetlights in Harare in preparation for the 44th Sadc Summit set for next month. On January 29, PRAZ granted a few specific exemptions to facilitate the expeditious completion of various key projects in time for the Summit.
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Consequently, on March 15, a tender was gazetted and was flighted on the PRAZ portal on March 19. The court heard that 11 companies responded to the tender.
On March 28, Murerwa allegedly appointed the tender opening committee and included his accomplices on the evaluation committee, which then awarded the tender to rehabilitate eight of the 10 lots to four companies. Due to lot limitation, no company was awarded more than two lots.
Juluka Endo Joint Venture, a company in which Mpofu is the majority shareholder, was disqualified after failing to meet the tender requirements.
However, the council workers allegedly connived and awarded the tender of the remaining two lots to Juluka Endo. It is the State's case that the officials disregarded their earlier decision to disqualify Juluka Endo and awarded the tender to the company, whose owners also own Synlak (Pvt) Ltd, a company which in 2019 was awarded a tender for a biogas digester and failed to deliver.
This was contrary to the standard of bidding conditions which provide that bidders who have bad records in the execution of City of Harare works are ineligible.
However, acting on their recommendations, the City of Harare entered into a contract with Juluka Endo and thereafter prepared for an advance payment of the contract value of US$9 244 328,71.
