“We are trying to understand how up to R6.65bn ($588m) worth of tender funds have been awarded to foreign contractors,” Marianne Vanderschuren, president of the South African Institution of Civil Engineering (SAICE), the leading domestic industry lobby, tells The Africa Report.
In May, the South Africa National Road Agency, a state utility, cancelled five eagerly-awaited tenders to modernise the country’s major highway arteries and circulation bridges.
The five separate tenders were a vital cog of President Ramaphosa’s 100-day promise to encourage stimulus deals to reduce South Africa’s dizzying unemployment crisis.
The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) claimed that the tenders were marred by corruption. With an outside engineering consultant sitting on the award committee, procurement rules were violated, according to the authority.
Four out of the five road
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