Fin24 reports that the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) has suspended its chief financial officer and its head of supply chain management amid ongoing tussles between management and the board over procurement policy.
The two officials, namely Inge Mulder (CFO) and Inba Thumbiran (head of supply chain management), are experienced career civil servants with impeccable credentials. Their suspensions come in the context of ongoing conflict between Sanral officials and the board, which, under Themba Mhambi, has made radical changes to procurement policies. In the latest development, the board has summarily changed the preferential procurement rules . As a result, two construction firms have taken Sanral to court to have the new rules overturned. Preferential procurement is a system by which previously disadvantaged groups can earn extra points in the scoring of tenders. In a previous dispute between Mhambi and management, procurement officials were lambasted for not following a board policy that, in tenders of more than R1 billion, the design engineer and the contracting engineer must be unrelated, a practice which is not the norm in either the private or public sector.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Carol Paton at Fin24 (subscriber access only)
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