Cipro senior management placed on special leave following DA meeting with minister
The Democratic Alliance (DA) understands that Cipro Chief Executive Officer Keith Sendwe, and Chief Information Officer Dr. Michael Twum-Darko, who were allegedly involved in rigging a R152-million Electronic Content Management (ECM) tender to ValorIT, have both been placed on special leave with immediate effect.
An SMS was sent to senior staff at Cipro confirming Dr. Twum-Darko's special leave late on Friday. We have subsequently learnt that Keith Sendwe has been placed on a four month special leave.
On Thursday last week, I, along with Kobus Marais MP, the DA's Shadow Minister of Trade and Industry, met with the Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies and the Director General at the Department, Tshediso Matona, to request that both Twum-Darko and Sendwe be suspended. We therefore warmly welcome this move.
In addition to irregularities with the ValorIT contract, the Democratic Alliance has revealed a number of other serious allegations that have emerged against Dr. Twum-Darko, including that his salary exceeded the allocated salary band, that he was a foreign national at the time of his appointment - and thus could not have obtained the necessary NIA security clearance - and also that the granting of the tender to ValorIT has had a series of damaging knock-on effects, effecting the operating of the Cipro database in 2009, allegedly as a consequence of ValorIT's inexperience in setting up and handling Electronic Content Management (ECM) systems.
These suspensions follow shortly after we received written confirmation of the launching of an independent investigation into the awarding of the ValorIT contract - again, this was at the DA's behest.
We received confirmation of this investigation in the form of an internal memo sent out in this past week to employees at the Cipro, confirming both that an independent investigation will be carried out into alleged fraud and corruption in that entity, and guaranteeing that whistleblowers will receive protection, and not be victimised during the investigation.
I asked Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies to set up this investigation last year, and I understand that Minister Davies personally commissioned this investigation. We welcome these set of developments, and particularly the assurances that have been offered to whistleblowers.
All of these developments both vindicate our long-standing concerns over apparent irregularities at Cipro, and, crucially, offer some hope that some tentative progress may be made into addressing this mess.
A copy of the memo confirming the investigation is available for download from the DA Media Centre. The memo was signed by Mr. Lungile Dukwana, who is acting as CEO in the absence of the Mr. Keith Sendwe, who is currently on special leave. In the circular Mr. Dukwana requests employees to assist the investigators with information regarding possible fraud and corruption.
We hope that Mr. Dukwana will assure independently contracted workers that they will also be protected from prosecution. Cipro is an IT intensive entity, and many of the IT services have been rendered by these independent contractors. Confidentiality arrangements must explicitly be extended to all independent contractors.
We have also learned that the report by the Auditor-General on allocation of the enterprise content management (ECM) tender has been completed. We eagerly await this report's findings, and believe that serious irregularities may be exposed.
Statement issued by Andricus van der Westhuizen, MP, Democratic Alliance deputy shadow minister of trade and industry, March 7 2010
Click here to sign up to receive our free daily headline email newsletter
