On February 9 last year, Stoffel Fourie, the head of special investigations at the Office of the Public Protector, wrote to Telkom's external lawyers, stating that the losing bidders had written to him to complain and were quite adamant that "a number of irregularities have occurred during the tender process".
It is also alleged that the PRC changed the "critical tender criteria" and that a shortlist approved Hezeki/Plessey and Bihati Solutions.
Subsequent to his firing, Nzeku wrote a report to the Minister of Communications, Siphiwe Nyanda.
In the report, Nzeku stated that: "The tender specification was changed by the PRC without authority after the tender was closed and shortlisting completed. This was done to accommodate some bidders and exclude others.
"(The) Hezeki/Plessey consortium was supposed to have been disqualified for violating Telkom trademarks and tender confidentiality by disclosing tender information during the adjudication stage. The Telkom board of directors was misled and thus awarded the tender unlawfully," Nzeku wrote.