★★ Building FIRE IN THE HOLE w at c h d o g on shaky ground Dodgy grading puts public at risk GRAEME HOSKEN awarding of gradings. Spanish soldiers of the 7th Airborne Light Infantry Brigade ‘Galicia’ perform manoeuvres in preparation for Nato’s The board’s grading system gov- Very High Readiness Joint Task Force in Zargoza, Spain. It will be used as a ‘spearhead force’ that can be deployed A PRESIDENTIAL proclamation erns how private and government at short notice to counter threats against Nato sovereignty Picture: JAVIER CEBOLLADA/EPA allowing the Special Investigating construction contracts are awarded. Unit to probe a construction The grading a contractor industry watchdog could open a receives determines the maximum can of worms. value of the projects for which it The proclamation grants the SIU can tender. Grade 9 contractors It was established to i nve st i g at e C o r r u pt According to the presidential power to investigate government qualify for work worth more than complaints about violations of the proclamation, the SIU should in- contracts awarded to ineligible R130-million. board’s code of conduct, such as c o n t ra c to r s vestigate the “validity of construc- c o mp a n i e s . The SIU has also been asked to fraud and corruption in awa r d i n g tion work contracts awarded by Industry insiders say such cor- investigate the appointment of “a contracts, and to ensure that pro- are getting state institutions to contractors, ruption would affect municipal ser- panel of service providers to con- curement systems are fair and where these institutions relied on vice delivery and lead to potholed duct investigations for the board”. t r a n sp a r e n t . gradings higher the unlawful or invalid registration roads and shoddily constructed The unit is to determine whether Molise refused to comment on than they should as contractors in the register of housing. that appointment process v i o l at e d other questions from The Times contractors, and contractor grad- about the SIU investigation. ‘ ing designations awarded by the The SIU has been instructed to Treasury regulations. look into a variety of practices at This panel, said board SIU spokesman Sefura Mongalo board to those contractors”. the Construction Industry Devel- spokesman Kolti Molise, includes failed to respond to detailed ques- opment Board, including the specialist forensic investigators. tions on the investigation. ý Continued on Page 2 2 The Times Thursday April 21 | 20 1 6 N E WS Schools Order in the court: sys tem hacks the Judges go to school h a c ke r s KATHARINE CHILD LEONIE WAGNER officers over the next three years. spokesman Nathi Mncube said the Social and Economic Development and BIANCA CAPAZORIO The training will include cours- courses were developed after a welcomed the promotion of st a n - es on the Domestic Violence Act, broad consultative process with dardised training. Vetten said THIRTEEN professional hackers THE Office of the Chief Justice the Maintenance Act and the Im- the judges and magistrates. He training on sexual offences was tried to hack the Gauteng edu- wants to almost double its training migration Act. added that the acts mentioned in especially necessary as there were cation department’s online school budget in the next two years — Experts have welcomed the the report were examples and did still “too many cases where judges ap p l i c at i o n syst e m . pushing the amount spent from department’s move, saying there not necessarily denote p r i o r i ty . suggest [rape] is not serious if the But the system “hacked the hack- R34-million to R60-million by 2018. was a need for standardised train- Researcher and gender activist victim has recovered”. ers back”. Yesterday Justice Minister ing, especially in legal matters in- Lisa Vetten of the Wits Institute for The report also highlights the So said Gauteng education MEC Michael Masutha announced that volving children. ripple effect of the increase in Panyaza Lesufi. the office would be working with a Shaheda Omar of the Teddy crime, which has increased the The applications site went live on budget of R1.785-billion in this Bear Clinic for abused children in There are too workload of judicial officers. The Monday after a six-hour delay be- financial year — with R920-million Johannesburg said there were Office of the Chief Justice iden- cause of technical problems. allocated to remuneration and “huge gaps” in the areas of do- many who tified the need for more judicial Lesufi said more than 188 000 par- benefits for judges and the mestic violence and maintenance. suggest rape is officers and infrastructure — but ents had applied for places fo r remaining R864-million for oper- “This is a sore point. Some ju- did not say how many magistrates Grade 1 or Grade 8 children. ational costs. dicial officials lack sensitivity in not always serious and judges needed to be hired. It received 37 500 hits a second on A portion of the R864-million will communicating with victims of do- Masutha yesterday told parlia- Monday afternoon. go towards training and recruiting mestic violence, including chil- ment that there would not be Lesufi said: “These statistics give judicial officers. The Office of the dren. There is a huge gap there ‘ enough funding to get the us confidence that people have Chief Justice’s 2016-2017 annual and this needs to be addressed in Mpumalanga High Court f u l ly heeded our call to register online.” performance plan aims to conduct the training,” Omar said. functional once its construction Half a million applications were 225 training courses for judicial Office of the Chief Justice has been c o mp l e t e d . expected, he said. The online system would stop fraud, such as that documented by NGO Corruption Watch in which POWER TO THE PEOPLE parents and officials at schools allowed some people to jump the Probe of application queue, he said. The Federation of School Gov- erning Bodies of SA said yesterday building that it had decided not to litigate against the department because two important changes to the on- industr y line system had been made on Mon- d ay . w at c h d o g The CEO of the federation, Paul Colditz, said: “The site was ý From Page 1 changed so that parents could indicate their school of choice and The unit will also investigate the online applications will be sent whether board officials irregularly to the schools for the compilation of disseminated confidential informa- the so-called A and B lists. This tion and the board’s alleged failure means a school’s language and to properly safeguard confidential admissions policies are taken into information. The investigation goes account. back to 2006. “In its previous format, the site Yesterday the Construction allocated a school based on the Industry Development Board parents’ address and it was not welcomed the investigation, saying possible for applicants to indicate it had asked for it as a counter to their language preference.” allegations of fraud and corruption. Some problems persisted. For- “The board simply cannot afford eigners had difficulty accessing the to ignore the potential risks site because it did not allow people associated with any fraud allega- to enter ID numbers that included tions related to its register of con- l e tt e r s . tractors. Fraud and corruption not The department’s Oupa Bodipe only undermine the country’s econ- said this was a “technical problem” omy and transformation efforts, A community leader addresses thousands of residents of Zandspruit, northwest of Johannesburg, who marched that had been rectified. they also potentially put the lives yesterday to demand electricity in their area Picture: ALON SKUY and safety of ordinary citizens in danger as a result of poor quality i n f r a st r u c tu r e , ” the board’s CEO, Hlengiwe Khumalo, said. sequence of such corruption was grading the board took into con- toria University’s construction eco- contractors trying to secure the Charles Wright, Stefanutti the collapse of municipalities’ ser- sideration the contractor’s nomics department, said the board higher gradings needed to secure Stocks’ enterprise development vice delivery capabilities. turnover, available capital, projects raised the topic of corruption at a [the most valuable] tenders.” director, who has assisted the “Contractors are receiving grad- executed and details of the largest stakeholders meeting in Pretoria He said tough economic times board in gradings, welcomed the ings they should not be getting. The project executed. three weeks ago. “They acknowl- made it hard for emerging con- i nve st i g at i o n . collapse of service delivery can be “The big problem is that the edged that [grading of contractors] tractors to maintain their grading “The board is incredibly strict in seen in every town, from roads board does not take into account is difficult to manage, especially and a down-gradings had serious granting grading applications but falling apart to other vital infras- the quality of work of contractors because of fronting and fraudulent adverse consequences for them. allegations of corruption must be tructure either not working or pro- or their safety record.” Tinus representations by contractors. “The board experiences huge dif- i nve st i g at e d . ” jects lying incomplete for years.” Maritz, a member of the board’s “The corruption, which is as bad ficulties in monitoring the coun- He said the most serious con- Wright said that in considering a advisory forum and head of Pre- now as it was pre-1994, is with try’s thousands of contractors.” 02 04 06 13 17 23 38 09 11 15 30 40 48 25 HOW TO CONTACT US Sourced from: South African Astronomical Observatory COPYRIGHT SUBSCRIPTION 17/31 e-mail: [email protected] The copyright on all material in this newspaper and Subscription and delivery problems: 0860 its supplements is expressly reserved.