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Mr Kuwaza

Herald Reporter
Government is investigating former State Procument Board chairperson, Mr Charles Kuwaza, over his role in awarding a solar tender to a Chinese company, ZTE Corporation, despite the firm failing to meet the specifications.

Under Mr Kuwaza’s instruction, the SPB last year cancelled the tender for the solar projects that were expected to add 300 megawatts to the national grid after ZTE had failed to comply with specifications at the earlier stage.

“That decision was to accommodate ZTE to renegotiate their price from an initial bid of $350 million to $180 million because competitors were charging around that range,” said a source.

“The investigations now are to establish Kuwaza’s interests because that is not the only tender involving ZTE Corporation that has had issues where things seem not to have been done according to the book.”

The SPB last October awarded tenders for solar power projects to three companies – Intratrek Zimbabwe (Gwanda), ZTE Corporation (Insukamini) and Number 17 Metallurgical China (Munyati) -with generation capacity of 100MW for each station. Their estimated cost is about $549 million.

Another source added: “The other bidders have no issues because they were already compliant even before the tender was cancelled.

“What is of concern to Government mainly is the fact that this ZTE Corporation was being awarded tenders from various goods from agriculture, telecommunications and even electricity. The question is how can they be experts in all those things? There are indications from the SPB that things were not being properly done particularly on tenders to do with ZTE Corporation. We may end up having to investigate all the tenders that they won.”

The source said the SPB under the guidance of the President’s Office and Cabinet wanted to restore order in the procurement processes.

“This has obviously been influenced by a number of concerns that have been raised about irregularities in the procurement of goods that were adjudicated by the SPB during Kuwaza’s tenure.

“That is also the reason why Government is pushing the idea of having ministries and departments procure directly without going through the SPB. We really have to clean that mess if the country is to move forward with a proper and transparent SPB following the appointment of the new board,” said the source.

Secretary for Energy Mr Partson Mbiriri last week told our sister paper The Sunday Mail that Government was indeed conducting due diligence on the Chinese firm though the contract had not been suspended.