Coltart exonerated from tender scam allegations

ZimEye

22 March 2012

The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has exonerated Education Minister David Coltart from random allegations that claimed he had flouted tender regulations by issuing a textbook supply contract to an international company.

UNICEF said the procurement of textbooks was done in accordance with United Nations rules and not in accordance with Zimbabwean laws.

In a statement, Unicef said its rules dictated that bids be adjudicated on the basis of both quality and value for money.

The agency was responding to state media story based on a Parliamentary Portfolio Committee report on Education and Culture that alleged that the process was not done in accordance with the law. The committee, chaired by Cde Dorothy Mangami (Zanu-PF) had fingered Education, Arts, Sport and Culture Minister David Coltart for failing to handle the textbooks tendering system transparently. The textbooks were bought under the Education Transition Fund.

“A Contracts Review Committee must approve all such procurement processes, such committees were comprised only of UN senior staff, these committees did not include any government minister or any other government official and are subject to the strictest conflict of interest, transparency, confidentiality and audit requirements,” said the statement.

In its report presented on Tuesday, the committee had alleged that the Minister had failed to uphold the provisions and guidelines of a Statutory Instrument governing procurement of goods and services.

The committee said there was need to harmonise international laws and domestic laws, adding that where there appeared to be a conflict, local laws should take precedence.

“The committee questioned the role played by Unicef in dictating their own tender procedures at the expense of local procedures raising concern whether international law takes precedence over domestic law,” read the report.

It was also claimed in the report that publishers were asked to submit joint prices and Unicef was to supply them with additional information, which the UN agency had used elsewhere internationally.

“A meeting to finalise these issues was to be convened, but it never took place,” read the report tabled by Cde Mangami.

The committee said Unicef required two formats on price, that is the unit price and the price per page but it was felt that it was left vague as to which format would apply. The Ministry had also been castigated for failing to have a clear data capturing mechanism which resulted in distribution of wrong textbooks to some schools.

Lower Gweru School got Shona textbooks instead of Ndebele books.
In its statement last night, Unicef said the programme was successfully implemented as it had actually achieved more than just its intended target within the same budget envelope.

This, said Unicef, was as a result of the willingness by Zimbabwean publishing houses to act in the best interests of children as it went beyond the initial target of merely improving ratio of pupil textbook in primary school from 10:1 to around 2:1.

“These savings not only allowed a 1:1 ratio of primary school books to be achieved but also enabled the programme to be extended to secondary schools within the same budget envelope,” said Unicef.

It estimated the total combined savings to international donors and ultimately to Zimbabwean children as being more than US$50 million across both the primary and secondary schools. The textbooks procured through the fund were Maths, English, Environmental Science, Shona and Ndebele, History and Geography.

Meanwhile, Coltart said he was never a part of the tender process stating that the report “gives the impression it was Zimbabwean government money subject to Zimbabwe government tender procedures which it was not. It was all donor money donated by Western governments and other organisations to the Education Transition Fund.”

The Education minister said the textbooks were funded by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and that “UNICEF used its own tender procedures to go out and negotiate the contracts for the production of the books. None of us in government were involved in the tender process in anyway whatsoever.”

Coltart appeared before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Education and Sports, Tuesday, where legislators from both ZANU PF and the MDC-T took him to task over the supply of the textbooks.