Editor, I read an article in The Sunday Times about the fight the Office of the Prosecutor General is waging against tender fraud; it is ridiculous to see how state funds are carelessly mismanaged and stolen. In your article you mentioned that approving additional money on top of the initial contract is illegal. As the article elaborates that there’s an investigation to be conducted to establish whether the contracting firms are not owned by government officials. This is possible and if not then there might be another link between those firms and the government officials concerned. There are three transport companies that won the tender bid for government official who need to move from place to place if the movement is connected to his/her work. Though I don’t have all the names, but one of them is a company called ‘Gorillas’. These companies have been working for the whole year, and despite the fact that it was a year long contract, they were given another year without another any bidding. Do these officials awarding tenders to the same companies without bidding, not doing something illegal? Why can’t they set a standard? My opinion is, why can’t institutions negotiate with different companies in addition to these three and then they choose the ones with fair rates and services? Thank you. John Mugabojohmug@gmail.com
