EFF’s Collen Sedibe opens corruption case against former speaker, CFO and secretary

MBOMBELA – The Economic Freedom Fighters provincial leader Collen Sedibe opened a case of fraud and corruption against former provincial legislature speaker Thandi Shongwe, legislature secretary Linda Mwale and Chief Financial Officer Mbuso Mpika.

Sedibe, who addressed the media outside the police station yesterday, said the irregular awarding of tenders worth R19million and R9.5million was after establishing the Auditor General’s report. “The tenders were awarded to companies that were not competitive bidders. They chose a company that bid with 9.5 instead of a company that bid with one million.. The other company does not have an accreditation certificate. We are happy that we have evidence and the case is opened and hope that an arrest will be made soon,” said Sedibe.

VIDEO: EFF provincial leader Collen Sedibe laid fraud and corruption charges against former speaker of legislature Thandi Shongwe and legislature secretary Linda Mwale at Nelspruit Police Station this afternoon. This is what Sedibe had to say: pic.twitter.com/NHfUZAshVK

— .J A B U L A N E. (@JustJabzz) August 1, 2018

Mwale responded to the allegations by stating that the Auditor General’s report findings were incorrect and the photocopier company, Lowveld Automation was eliminated from evaluation since it submitted a photocopied tax clearance.

“Besides we proved to the AG that the Legislature was paying more than R4 million per annum to the company per year as the previous service provider before appointing the current service provider (Junox),” said Mwale.

Mpumalanga EFF leader Collen Sedibe at Nelspruit police station to open a case of fraud against secretary of the Mpumalanga legislature Linda Mwale and former speaker Thandi Shongwe. This after the AG report pointed to issues of irregularities in issuing of tenders. #sabcnews pic.twitter.com/4kWvGsvZQd

— Mweli Masilela (@mwelimasilela) August 1, 2018

He also responded to the SAP support contract stating that Frugacode met the criteria. “In order to be considered for evaluation, the company and its partner and the consultants must be accredited on SAP. Frugacode met the requirements because in its submission it submitted the partnership agreement with a company accredited on SAP and also the SAP accreditation of its Consultant. Since the appointment of Frugacode the Legislature never experienced a situation whereby the company could not access the system, instead Frugacode managed to complete the modules (finance, HCM and Finance) and to address challenges experienced by the previously appointed service providers, by completing the modules in less than a year and continued to provide SAP support,” he mentioned in a statement.