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Prosper Dembedza

Herald Correspondent

The investigating officer in the matter of four Harare City officials, who allegedly awarded a US$9 million tender to Juluka Endo Joint Venture without following proper procedure, yesterday told the court that if they were granted bail, the quartet would be viciously attacked by the public since everyone was angry with them.

The officer, Owen Mutembwa revealed this while opposing bail to the quartet.

Never Murerwa (62), Jabulani Mukomazi (44), Denford Zhungu (69) and Tawanda Mutenhabundo (29), who are facing criminal abuse of office charges, are still applying for bail.

Mutembwa said Zhungu abandoned the standard process only for the purpose of clearing the bidder and allocated the bid to the Juluka Endo Company that had no merit.

The defence argued that the witness has not yet provided any evidence that the alleged bank statements were indeed fake.

The defence further submitted that in the meeting where the evaluation process was conducted, there was an auditor, hence everything which transpired was above board.

However, Mutembwa objected to the submissions, stating that he did not find anything relating to the re-tendering of Juluka Endo Joint Venture.

The defence argued that the value of prejudice indicated in the Form 242 may be wrong since there was no evidence that Juluka Endo Joint Venture received the US$9 million .

Presiding magistrate Mrs Marehwanazvo Gofa deferred the matter to today for continuation of bail application.

It is the State’s case that sometime in January this year, City of Harare embarked on a rehabilitation of street lights along the capital’s roads in preparation for next month’s 44th Southern African Development Community Summit.

On January 29, the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Praz) granted a few specific exemptions to facilitate the expeditious completion of various key projects in time for the summit. Consequently on March 15, a tender was published in the Government Gazette and it was listed on the Praz portal on March 19.

The court heard that 11 companies responded to the tender.

On March 28, Murerwa allegedly appointed the tender opening committee and included his accomplices on the evaluation committee, which awarded four companies the tender to rehabilitate eight of the 10 lots.

Due to lot limitation, no company was awarded more than two lots.

Juluka Endo Joint Venture, a company in which Moses Mpofu is the majority shareholder, was disqualified after failing to meet the tender requirements.

However, the council workers allegedly connived and awarded the tender of the remaining lots to Juluka Endo.

It is alleged that the officials disregarded their earlier decision to disqualify Juluka Endo and awarded the tender to the company, whose owners also own Synlak (Pvt) Ltd, a company which in 2019 was awarded a tender for a biogas digester and failed to deliver.

This was contrary to standard of bidding document conditions which provides that bidders who have bad records in execution of City of Harare tenders are ineligible.

Acting on their recommendations, the City of Harare entered into a contract with Juluka Endo   and thereafter commenced preparation for an advance payment of the contract valued at US$9 244 328,71.

Mpofu and fellow businessman Mike Chimombe are in court over failure to supply goats under the Presidential Goat Scheme after receiving payment from Treasury.