Tshwane After The Da Takeover - What's Changed?

We have launched programmes and mechanisms to save the City money. Chief among these are the strategic sourcing of goods, an open tender system, e-procurement systems, which are all, in one way or another, aimed at curbing leakages in the supply chain process and maladministration... Fraud cases have been instituted against corrupt officials. This is to avoid occurrences such as the notorious “shoe polish” debacle which saw millions of rand lost when goods were purchased at hugely inflated prices that otherwise could’ve been procured at wholesale rates.

- Susan Puren

REMEMBER THE TSHWANE METRO’S larger-than-life chief store-keeper Robert Slaughter (nose205)? He with a love of tattoos, exotic cars and luxury holidays? After having been suspended for three months, Slaughter is apparently back on the job, seemingly cleared of all the nasty accusations Noseweek had levelled against him.

Slaughter had created and released purchase requisitions worth millions of rands for a significant number of orders that went to vendors who then charged the city exorbitant prices for whatever stock was ordered. One example: he created about 16,000 purchase requisitions for energy-saving light bulbs at R300 each, while they were available at Makro for R79 each.

Information about Tshwane’s spending spree under the previous ANCrun administration was leaked to Noseweek in the form of hundreds of pages of computer printouts detailing the purchases (nose203).

The new DA administration promised swift action. The scandalous over-pricing of goods ordered for the city’s warehouses has reduced. Newly leaked documents in Noseweek’s possession show, for example, that a batch of Kiwi shoe polish bought in February this year cost the city R14.60 a tin – less than half the earlier R30 price. It seems the shoe polish suddenly lasts much longer, as this was the first consignment of shoe polish ordered since August last year.

Last year’s leaked papers exposed wide-scale corruption, collusion, price fixing, cover quotes and outright fraud. At the centre of it all was chief storekeeper Robert Slaughter, who had allegedly surrounded himself with several cartels and lived the high life.