Pretoria - Tshwane Mayor Kgosientso Ramokgopa has denied allegations that the city would lose R1.2 billion following the termination of a lucrative smart pre-paid meters contract with service provider, PEU Capital Partners.
“We can prove that we went out on tender. No one has ever questioned whether the smart meters work. Not less than a month ago I had DA councillors asking why we were not rolling out the smart meters in their areas,” Ramakgopa told a summit following his State of the city address presented on Thursday.
“Everyone accepts the merits of the smart meter. We can prove that we went out on tender. That councillor must tell us, because you can’t just go out and make spurious remarks about the city. Tell us where is this R1.2 billion.”
Democratic Alliance finance spokesman Lex Middelberg told reporters this week that there was proof that the city had selected an option that would milk R1.2 billion from the metro by June 2017.
Ramaphosa said the allegations were based on “manufactured” documents.
“Your question is based on a document that is manufacturered, and you want me to respond to it. The person who produced and manufactured the document will give you the answers,” said Ramokgopa when asked further about the R1.2 billion.
“Last week Friday we asked the city manager to go and determine the terms of the termination of the contract. He hasn’t come back to us but someone has manufactured something saying R1.2 billion, I don’t know where that comes from.”
He said the termination of the contract, announced in February, was going ahead.
Tshwane has already forked R830 million to the service provider for the installation of smart meters. Ramokgopa said the R830 million was not lost as infrastructure had been rolled out for the project.
Friday’s session was meant to unpack Ramokgopa’s state of the city address but questions on the R1,2 billion dominated.
Meanwhile, Ramokgopa announced in his state of the city address that R50 million would be channelled towards fighting drug abuse, a common sight in the capital city.
“Nyaope is the biggest problem. I want to suggest that it is in fact a security problem. It is ruining our cities and provinces,” said Ramokgopa.
“We don’t have plans as the city. For now we are making available money, to the tune of R50 million to NGOs, extra-parliarmentary organisations. These are people who are in that space. They have all the expertise. We will direct this money to them.”
ANA