The resignation of Collin Matjila, the chief executive of Cosatu’s investment arm, Kopano Ke Matla, as the non-executive chairman of Raubex, has exposed the labour federation’s deception in claiming it had no knowledge of the e-tolls.
Kopano is a 3 percent shareholder in Raubex, the construction company that won a tender to build the R800 million R21 as part of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project.
However, Cosatu recently championed a vociferous and widespread protest objecting to paying the tolls, opposing the government’s insistence that tolling will proceed.
Matjila resigned from Raubex on Tuesday, saying he believed it was appropriate to stand down to prevent any perceived conflict of interest, considering the company’s involvement in projects to privatise national roads.
Last week, Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi said Matjila had informed the federation of the possible conflict of interest only when he was contacted last week.
But it seems Cosatu is engaged in double speak when it says it did not know that Kopano was involved in e-tolling projects. The SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) advertised for tenders for the upgrading and/or construction of national roads in and around Tshwane, Johannesburg and Ekurhuleni as early as August 2008.
The advert clearly stated: “The improved road network will be tolled using Open Road Tolling (free flow tolling without any physical lane separation or hindrance). It is envisaged that tolling of the first phase of 185kms, using 42 toll points (gantries) and generating in excess of 2 million tolling point passages per day, will commence in the last quarter of 2010, followed by future phases thereafter, as determined by Sanral.”
The advert said Sanral was inviting applications from suitable qualified and experienced applicants – companies, joint ventures, consortiums or partnerships – that met the prequalification requirements and evaluation criteria to prequalify for one or more of the packages as defined in the preqalification documentation.
Prequalified applicants would be invited and permitted to participate in the tender process that would follow the prequalification process.
The advert said a compulsory clarification meeting would be held on August 28, 2008 at 10am at Sanral’s corporate offices in Pretoria. Non-attendance at the meeting would disqualify the applicant.
The advert was also posted on tollinfo.wordpress.com.
Yesterday, Solly Phetoe, the Cosatu North West secretary, issued a statement in which he said the labour federation in the province was disturbed by the poor journalism seen in City Press on the issue of Kopano and Raubex regarding the construction of the R21.
He said Cosatu wanted to put into correct perspective for all the people of South Africa, that when the infrastructure in Gauteng and other World Cup hosting towns was improved, it was said that the funding for such projects would come from the World Cup Benefit Fund, and that nothing was said about the tolling of the roads.
“Cosatu wants to also highlight that the SABC has reported that in the documents that Raubex received for tendering, there is nothing said about the tolling of the roads, information which City Press has chosen to ignore.
“In our view, this is bad journalism, as journalists must find all facts before going to print and not just print one side,” Phetoe said.
Patrick Craven, the spokesman for Cosatu, was not available for comment. - Wiseman Khuzwayo
