The Hawks have visited Smit Amandla Marine in connection with their probe into the R800m patrol fleet contract.
|||Cape Town - Officers from the Hawks have visited ship management company Smit Amandla Marine in connection with their investigation into the controversial R800-million management contract for South Africa’s fisheries research and patrol fleet.
The visit to the company’s Paarden Eiland offices at about noon on Thursday was confirmed by Smit spokeswoman Clare Gomes, who said: “We’ve been requested to provide information in connection with an investigation relating to the Daff (Department of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries) vessel management contract and are co-operating fully.”
Hawks spokesman Captain Paul Ramaloko declined to comment. “We don’t talk about operations that are still under way,” he said.
Smit had held the management contract for 11 years until the end of March last year, when it was not renewed. It was then awarded to a consortium headed by Sekunjalo Investments - a move that Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson had previously announced in November 2011.
Smit launched an urgent high court review application in December 2011 but subsequently dropped this action after Joemat-Pettersson withdrew the contract from Sekunjalo. The contract was then given to the SA Navy for a year, and is now with another company, Nautic South Africa, on a short-term emergency basis pending a call for a new five-year tender.
Last year, Joemat-Pettersson absolved Sekunjalo from any blame in the contract debacle and insisted her department had been at fault. “The reality is that, based on legal advice, it was our processes and procedures that failed… Based on the advice and further legal opinion, I have decided to scrutinise broadly all the current and past tenders at fisheries.”
But her explanation did not satisfy the opposition DA, which asked Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to investigate. Her preliminary report into the matter is due within days.
Joemat-Pettersson also publicly criticised Smit Amandla during an agriculture portfolio committee meeting last year.
Asked to comment on Thursday, Joemat-Pettersson said through her spokeswoman Palesa Mokomele: “The law must take its course.” Sekunjalo had not responded to a request for comment at the time of publication.
john.yeld@inl.co.za
Cape Argus