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Harare Bureau
POWERTEL has been found guilty of failing to follow proper tender procedures when it appointed E-Solutions as aggregators for the sale of the Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company electricity units in 2013.

Powertel floated the tender for the appointment of electricity token aggregators for seven days instead of the required 30 days.

This comes after there was an outcry over the appointment of “ill-prepared” E-Solutions as aggregator, which has gone to leave consumers in the lurch for almost two years, as electricity tokens were not easily available as the system suffered from constant breakdowns.

The appointment of Powertel to provide the system for electricity tokens also caused an outcry, where, although there was a directive to appoint ZETDC’s sister company, bidders to the tender and independent observers felt the process of arriving at that decision was unprocedural considering that a public tender had been floated.

The tender is said to have been cancelled unprocedurally after then Energy Minister Dzikamai Mavhaire “handpicked” Powertel for the job in spite the fact that through the tender process, the company (together with E-Solutions) had been disqualified after adjudication for not having the required technical capacity.

In a letter to Powertel managing director Engineer Samuel Maminimini dated November 3, 2015, seen by our Harare Bureau, the State Procurement Board said Powetel contravened tender procedures by floating an informal tender for seven days instead of 30 days without prior authority from the board

The tender: INF/PWT/36/2013, sought companies with expertise in prepaid electricity vending to create distribution networks that make use of various technologies for the sale of pre-paid electricity tokens.

“…the State Procurement Board noted that the accounting officer floated an informal tender with a short closing period of seven days without authority in contravention of the procurement regulations which require tenders to be returnable within 30 days unless a longer or shorter closing period is granted by the board.

“Accordingly, the State Procurement Board has, through PBR 1695C of October 29, 2015, resolved that the accounting officer should, within 14 days of notifications, pay $900 administration fees in line with Statutory Instrument 159 of October 12, 2012, for failure to follow proper tender procedures.”

Power utility Zesa introduced the pre-paid meters three years ago to improve revenue collections and has since installed 530,000 units against a target of 800,000.