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Richmond deal clean, says PCB
2007-05-12 10:00:31
By Austin Beyadi
The Prevention of Corruption Bureau has said that it has established that there was no corruption involved in the contract signed between Richmond and the government.
The Bureau has also announced that there is no supporting evidence that the process of awarding the tender was associated with corruption, negligence or receiving commission by government officials who handled the contract.
Talking to reporters in Dar es Salaam yesterday, PCB Director General Edward Hoseah said the tender was given to Richmond after it had been backed by a most reputable company in the world.
He said that Richmond won after being proved as the only company which was offering a low price of 0.0669USD per unit and that it was also backed by Pratt and Whitney, a company with a lot of experience in electricity manufacturing and generating.
He said investigations had however revealed that there were weaknesses which were normal in management and that government officials were not involved in corruption or any other act of self benefiting.
He said some of the weaknesses included the fact that the commission which was appointed did not have time to investigate the track record of the company in order to know its technical and financial capabilities.
He said that with the pressure the commission was facing to solve the power problem in the country, Richmond used Pratt and Whitney which is well known to cover itself thus qualified for tendering.
He said due to the fact that Richmond was depending on Pratt and Whitney, it was forced to sell the contract to Dowans Holding after its relations with Pratt and Whitney had been severed.
Hoseah said soon after Pratt and Whitney abandoned Richmond, the company was not able to implement the contract.
He said that this caused the Richmond to sell the contract and its operations to Dowans Holdings and investigations had revealed that there was no relationship between the management of Richmond and Dowans Holdings.
He said because Richmond had failed to implement the contract within the agreed period, it was supposed to pay TANESCO a daily fine amounting to 10,000 USD starting February 20, this year.
He added that because Dowans Holdings had acquired both the Richmond operations and contract, it was the one which would be paying the fine to TANESCO.
He said PCB had investigated to establish who were the owners of the Richmond Development Company and whether the process of offering tenders was followed.
He said the Bureau had also probed whether favouritism was involved when offering the tender to Richmond.
Hoseah further said they had also probed how much was paid to Richmond up to the time the firm transferred the contract to Dowans.
In June last year, the government, through TANESCO, signed an agreement with Richmond Development Company to supply emergency electricity generators.
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