‘Answer my question’: Suspended Tshwane CFO Mnisi and Madlanga commissioners clash over Nkosi texts
· Citizen
Suspended Tshwane municipality chief financial officer (CFO) Gareth Mnisi has robustly defended his involvement in alleged rigged tenders.
Mnisi was implicated in tender rigging by the recently-arrested Sergent Fannie Nkosi during his testimony before the Madlanga Commissionon of Inquiry.
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Tshwane suspended its CFO last week over the issue, but Mnisi spent much of his interactions with the commissioners and evidence leader on Monday explaining the nature of the messages.
Commissioners clashed with Mnisi several times, often outright questioning the honesty of the witness.
The day concluded with Mnisi still on the stand, with his testimony set to continue on Tuesday morning.
Alleged preferential security companies
Evidence leader Matthew Chaskalson and the commissioners put it to Mnisi that the text messages show an exchange where security companies were identified for preferential treatment.
The list of security companies contained seven entities, with four going on to receive sizable contracts with the city.
Mnisi, also chair of the bid adjudications committee at the time, was adamant that this was not the case, stressing that the telephonic conversations recorded on the logs would contain the truth.
“Why chair, would you assume that I am the one requesting for entities by virtue of these phone calls?
“I wouldn’t feel that it is fair to assume, by the virtue of phone calls, and create an alignment on certain situations. It is not objective, chair,” said Mnisi.
Nkosi sent the list to Mnisi four times in the space of a month, with Mnisi stating he believed he was being requested to check the compliance of the companies listed.
Mnisi said he became suspicious that Nkosi’s intentions were nefarious, after which he claimed to telephonically relay to the sergeant that the requests had to stop.
“It would be helpful for me to desist that persistence from continuing further. That was the context of sharing that in order to try and make that solid within Sergeant Nkosi’s mind on why I cannot assist in this matter,” siad Mnsisi
‘Persistent nature’
Chaskalson said Mnisi’s answers were “transparently false”, and asked him to confirm if he knew Nkosi was specifically asking for compliance reports on the listed security companies or something else.
“I am not going to say yes or no. I qualified this, with all due respect. Firstly, by virtue of persistence, I made up my own inference.
“There is no conclusive evidence for me to accept that, but due to the persistent nature of the request and how they came about, I, in my mind, saw it as that. But I can’t conclusively say with objective evidence, that I was asked to rig a tender,” said Mnisi.
He said he could not report corruption unless he had verifiable information, adding that it would also require assistance from bid evaluation committee (BEC) members.
“I would wait for the BEC chair to raise this as an alarm. As part and parcel of that, I could effectively use that submission as part of my evidence for escalating further.
“In the absence of that, I just need to ensure that we safeguard the process. Be alert of any concrete evidence that I need to obtain which would enable me to escalate the matters further,”
“At this point in time, there was nothing that was there,” Mnisi said.
‘Mfowethu’
Commissioner Sandile Khumalo had earlier disagreed with Mnisi’s assessment of the communications, going on to question Mnisi on how and when he used the iSizulu word mfowethu (my brother).
Mnisi said on Friday that he considered Nkosi a close person, but spent time denying that he, Nkosi and others had conspired to rig security tenders.
Commissioner Sesi Baloyi accused Mnisi of being “untruthful” in his explanations on the context of the text messages, as well as the manner in which he was answering the questions.
“No Mr Mnisi, don’t formulate your questions and then answer it. That is not what I have asked you. It is not helpful for our engagement. I have asked you a question, answer my question.
“My question is do you accept, therefore, given your explanation, that the mfowethu referred to in this text is in fact you, contrary to what you said to the chair earlier?” stated Baloyi.
The abrupt exchange ended with Mnisi accepting the messages were between him and Nkosi, but reiterated that there was nothing untoward.