By Alois Vinga
THE City of Harare has castigated the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (PRAZ) for working in cahoots with elements tilted towards stifling critical procurement for the local authority.
This follows the move by PRAZ blocking council approvals for BIQ system vendors, who were recently contracted by the latter to undertake work on the Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system.
The developments were promoted by CCG Pvt Ltd, a company initially tasked with the responsibility to put up a similar system which successfully filed a court application arguing the local authority could not proceed with BIQ since it is in possession of a running contract thereby barring any new suitor.
Speaking during a council meeting Thursday, visibly irritated Harare Mayor, Jacob Mafume castigated PRAZ for throwing spanners and stifling progress.
“We received a letter from the PRAZ dated August 24, 2024, and our ERP saga continues to take new twists. As you know, we have since contracted BIQ in terms of our budget. We had sought what we call condonation since an organisation is allowed to contract and approach PRAZ later which we did.
“Then PRAZ were supposed to respond to us, but they decided to go and attend a workshop. On their return they informed us we could not proceed with BIQ because of court papers from CCG Systems who are challenging our move,” he said.
Mafume said this is despite CCG’s platform underperformance choking the local authority from conducting audits since 2019 to date.
He said they are arguing that they still have a running contract with the municipality hence the need to stop ongoing work with BIQ on an urgent basis.
The mayor said PRAZ cannot do anything on the matter because it is now subjudice, a position he said is questionable considering that there is no interdict or any court order barring the BIQ contract.
“This is a case of service to a provider who has shortchanged us. Just last week, we lost data using this CCG system despite having honoured our part in settling all the balances we had to them to the tune of over 3 000 transactions.
“Yet that very same person who is failing to deliver has got the nerve to take us to court barring us from redressing the problems they created. Our understanding was that we don’t have an exclusive contract with CCG Systems. We are just renewing the licensing,” he said.
Mafume accused PRAZ of letting down the HCC highlighting there is a deliberate ploy to fail the local authority.
“How does PRAZ merely write a letter to state that a matter is subjudice without any interdict? We went to PRAZ but they spent two weeks without responding but just after receiving court papers from CCG Systems they responded within seconds.
“These people are sabotaging the council. The residents are suffering. At the end of the day we want to put a system in place. Money is being stolen from the council, transactions are getting lost and the service provider appointed against my advice years back in 2019,” the frustrated mayor said.
Advising the council, Harare acting chamber secretary, Warren Chiwawa said the letter does not amount to any meaningful legal document.
“The letter is not an interdict. We will respond to it and proceed with work currently under way,” he said.