ACB probes Macra staff audit contract
The Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) has opened a probe into the assessment of bid documents for a human resource audit consultancy at Malawi Communications Regulatory Authority (Macra).
In a telephone interview yesterday, ACB director general Martha Chizuma said the bureau received a complaint from a whistle-blower on the alleged interference by Macra board of directors in the award of the contract.
She said Macra board is accused of attempting to influence the award of a contract to be given to the second ranked bidder despite a successful bidder having already been selected.
Chizuma said: “We indeed received a complaint on the matter and we requested for some documentation from Macra. So, Macra sent us some of the documents last week which we are scrutinising as of now for the whole process.”
She said that after the scrutiny, the bureau will come up with a formal position on how the matter will be handled moving forward.
Macra board chairperson Stanley Khaila said he was in a meeting and did not pick up our subsequent calls later in the day while Macra communications manager Clara Ngwira requested for a questionnaire. She, however, indicated that the response may take longer as she had to get the details from other officers.
Documents we have seen show that Macra advertised for a consultancy contract for the human resource audit and that Mlambe Consulting Africa was listed as the successful bidder with Management International ranking second and Moda-Plus third.
Mlambe Consulting Africa charged about K10 million for the contract while Management International offered K30 million.
The Macra board asked the organisation’s internal procurement committee to give the contract to Management International and to make amendments to submit to the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Authority (PPDA) for a no objection.
The amendments were subsequently made and submissions for the no objection to the PPDA were made on July 29 2021 in a letter, reference number Macra/DG/124/bc.
But then PPDA acting director general Irene Mlewa said the no objection on the contract was withheld on the basis that it was not within the mandate of Macra board of directors to make decisions of any procurement processes.
Reads the letter in part: “The Authority [PPDA] has established that the [Macra] board had overstepped its mandate to make a procurement decision by rejecting the consulting firm with the highest combined scores and settle for the proposal which ranked second.
“Procurement and decision-making rests with the IPDC [Internal Procurement and Disposal Committee] as stipulated in the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Act 2017.”
Under Section 26 (2) (f) of the Public Procurement and Disposal of Assets Act of 2017, the IPDC has the responsibility of reviewing and approving evaluation reports.
The PPDA asked Macra to re-evaluate the consultancy contract based on what the PPDA Act stipulates to address the alleged irregularities.
