{"id":55432,"date":"2014-04-08T00:05:56","date_gmt":"2014-04-07T22:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=55432"},"modified":"2014-04-07T23:33:48","modified_gmt":"2014-04-07T21:33:48","slug":"media-house-coy-over-r756-million-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/55432\/media-house-coy-over-r756-million-contract\/","title":{"rendered":"Media house coy over R756 million contract"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The marketing agency named in the Special Investigating Unit&#8217;s SIU probe into a R756 million publicity tender with the Department of Communications says that it followed all due processes and distanced itself from allegations of corruption.<\/p>\n<p>It was reported last weekend that the SIU raided the offices of the DoC and seized computers in its investigation into the three quarter of a billion rand tender.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Media Corner acknowledges the media interest in the SIU investigation and is fully supportive and respectful of the process that is currently underway,&#8221; the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>It further expressed willingness to co-operate with the SIU as required, but noted that it has not been approached as yet and believes it is premature to comment at this point.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The contract between Media Corner and Department of Communications is governed by a Non-Disclosure Agreement which prohibits it from discussing the specifics thereof.<br \/>\nThese queries should be directed to the relevant parties within the Department of Communications.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The group did, however, confirm that it responded to the advertised tender for a &#8220;fully inclusive, 360 degree campaign to drive awareness around the digital terrestrial television (DTT) programme&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>It said it followed all due processes, as outlined in the tender documents, and believes it was awarded the contract on the creative and strategic strength and comprehensive nature of its submission.<\/p>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">R756 million for <em>what<\/em>?<\/h3>\n<p>Although details surrounding the specific media campaign are out of reach, court documents filed by whistle-blower Wisani Ngobeni in his case seeking protection in a separate matter, reveal what some of the money was being spent on.<\/p>\n<p>Ngobeni made the following allegations in his legal battle:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A copy of the contract between the DoC and Media Corner showed that Media Corner had proposed an <strong>advertising expenditure of R756 million<\/strong> over a period of three years.<\/li>\n<li>The proposed expenditure was accepted and approved by DoC DG Rosey Sekese despite the fact that the department did not have the budget to meet the proposed expenditure.<\/li>\n<li>The contract showed that Media Corner was not doing any work for the department but was presenting invoices for payment which deputy director general Sam Vilakazi was authorising for payment and which the department had duly paid.<\/li>\n<li>Media Corner was billing the department a <strong>monthly retainer of R983,335.67 without any billable activities<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>This amount emanated from the contractual provision in terms of which Media Corner was to be paid <strong>an annual retainer fee of R11.8 million<\/strong> inclusive of VAT.<\/li>\n<li>Of the <strong>R34 million already paid to Media Corner<\/strong>, about R6.8 million was paid specifically for the retainer, and he had come to the conclusion that there existed misconduct and irregular dealings between Vilakazi and Sekese, as well as Media Corner.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Ngobeni said that he had made a protected disclosure to members of the SUI in regard to Sekese\u2019s dealings with Media Corner on 16 January 2014. The disclosures he had made to the SIU included:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Between October 2012 and November 2013, Media Corner had submitted a total of <strong>15 invoices totalling in excess of R60.9 million<\/strong>. These invoices were irregularly authorised for payment by Vilakazi and paid by the Department.<\/li>\n<li>Expenditure control statement showed that for the current financial year starting from 1 April 2013 to 22 January 2014, <strong>R40.7 million was paid to Media Corner<\/strong> in respect of the Digital Migration awareness campaign.<\/li>\n<li>There is an <strong>over-expenditure of more than R6 million<\/strong> in the Chief Directorate even before the financial year ended in March 2014.<\/li>\n<li><strong>R60 million was belatedly allocated<\/strong> as total budget to the Chief Directorate for the awareness campaign, and only R17 million was remaining for that campaign, which has since been ring-fenced.<\/li>\n<li>Vilakazi and his personal assistant have facilitated the irregular payment by authorizing the issuing of a series of purchase orders.<\/li>\n<li>Sekese had signed a number of contracts with Media Corner and its sister company, Bagport South Africa, including the \u201cDigital Migration Awareness contract\u201d, which did not go through a proper bidding process;<\/li>\n<li>The \u201cTalk Show\u201d contract with Media Corner on 28 March 2012 for <strong>R9.5 million without following tender procedures<\/strong>.<\/li>\n<li>\u201cAirport Advertising\u201d contract signed by Sekese on 15 March 2012 worth over R1 million with Bagport SA without following tender process.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3 class=\"my-4\">More on the DoC<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a title=\"Permalink to SIU strikes in R756 million DoC probe\" href=\"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/55376\/siu-strikes-in-r756-million-doc-probe\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">SIU strikes in R756 million DoC probe<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Pule spokesman fighting for DoC job: report\" href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/92302-pule-spokesman-fighting-for-doc-job-report.html\"><strong>Pule spokesman fighting for DoC job: report<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/government\/79503-doc-spokesman-robbed-alleges-intimidation-tactics.html\"><strong>DoC spokesman robbed, alleges intimidation tactics<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The marketing agency named in the SIU&#8217;s investigation into a R756 million publicity tender with the Department of Communications says that it followed all due processes and shied away from allegations of corruption.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":46711,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26,7720,4558,4706,7061],"class_list":["post-55432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline","tag-media-corner","tag-rosey-sekese","tag-siu","tag-wisani-ngobeni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55432"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55432\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55441,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55432\/revisions\/55441"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}