The DA in Plettenberg Bay has allegedly given a company run by a resident in the area a R4.3 million short-term IT contract without tender, the Sunday Times reported.<\/p>\n
The contract was given to Dimension Data (Didata)<\/a>, a global IT company bought by Japan\u2019s NTT for R22 billion last year. The company\u2019s chairman was Jeremy Ord<\/a>, a Plettenberg Bay resident.<\/p>\n The Democratic Alliance took control of the Bitou municipality in May last year. After doing so, it fired IT supplier Lefatshe Technologies because its R10 million system didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n The DA\u2019s new mayor, Memory Booysen, said Ord then \u201coffered to send a team down to Plett, at no cost, to evaluate our technology systems\u201d, reported the Sunday Times.<\/p>\n On December 11, the DA-led council requested a \u201cdeviation from the tender process\u201d so it could award Didata the contract \u201cto stabilise the IT environment at Bitou\u201d.<\/p>\n According to the newspaper Bitou manager Terry Giliomee, in a letter to Booysen dated December 12, didn\u2019t receive other quotations because \u201cthere was not enough time\u201d.<\/p>\n In a letter dated August 30 Bitou officials gave Lefatshe 90 days notice and said their contract would come to an end on December 31.<\/p>\n E-mails from DA councillor Johann Brummer to Bitou officials in December urged action to be taken to prevent problems at Plettenberg Bay\u2019s Lookout restaurant.<\/p>\n Brummer wrote, according to the Sunday Times, \u201cRemember that Lookout is a Plett icon and hang-out of preference for some very powerful people, like Jeremy Ord and others who have supported us generously.\u201d<\/p>\n DA spokesman Jordan Hill-Lewis refused to confirm or deny if Ord had financially supported the party in the past. He said the DA would not engage in quid pro quo relationships with donors.<\/p>\n Booysen said before Didata were hired, no mention was made of Ord being a \u201csupporter\u201d of the DA.<\/p>\n ANC chief whip in Bitou, Phakie Mbali, said a supplier having to be appointed quickly was not a sufficient excuse for not putting the contract out to tender.<\/p>\n He said while Didata\u2019s assessment was for free, the municipality had found a way to pay the company R4.3 million anyway.<\/p>\n Ord\u2019s spokeswoman Hilary King said Ord would not comment on the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The DA in Plettenberg Bay has allegedly given a company run by a resident a R4.3 million short-term IT contract without tender<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":27793,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[8693,8689,1691,35,8683,8695,8687,8691,8685],"class_list":["post-42817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-democratic-alliance","tag-didata","tag-dimension-data","tag-headline","tag-johann-brummer","tag-lefatshe-technologies","tag-memory-booysen","tag-phakie-mbali","tag-terry-giliomee"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42817"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42817"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42817\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42831,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42817\/revisions\/42831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27793"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42817"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42817"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42817"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}