“What has happened to the Qbit case, Madam Speaker? You yourself referred it to the Municipal Public Accounts Committee (MPAC) in this very council, yet we have heard nothing,” said DA leader in Ekurhuleni, Clr Shelley Loe.
“Firstly, defying all logic, Qbit won the tender against the advice of our own legal and finance departments,” said Clr Loe.
She said the company has no experience in local government and are therefore not experts in the field.
She said the price paid for the work was “out of proportion to what has been delivered”.
“Qbit is a very small organisation with very few staff. They mainly use consultants who come and go,” said Clr Loe.
It was reported that only 20 percent of the original workers who started working on the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality Project are still involved with it.
“By way of comparison, Clr Eddie Taylor pointed me to an item in the council agenda for the October meeting, which shows EMM is prepared to pay R23,95-million for a master plan for the proposed Aerotropolis,” said Clr Loe.
She said this was a major job that would require specific expertise from experts and is many times more complex than the work done on the Institutional Review, for which Qbit is charging R32-million.
“What makes it worse is that Qbit has only served to add a few positions to the organisational structure previously proposed by KPMG and repeated the model structure for all departments, irrespective of whether they were large or small,” said Clr Loe.
“Botttom line – we overpaid by about R30-million for what Clr Patterson describes as a “slap and tickle panel beating job” of a more deserving company’s work,” said Mrs Loe.
The NEWS requested comment from EMM spokesperson, Mr Sam Modiba. No comment had been received at the time of going to print.
