Burera District officials were grilled by members of a parliamentary committee in charge of Public Accounts (PAC) over tenders awarded fraudulently to suppliers, according to an Auditor General’s report.

The officials who included the current Mayor, former mayor and vice mayors were asked to respond to queries raised by the Auditor-General, which question their decisions.

According to the 2017 AG report, district officials in charge of procurement were allegedly involved in flouting tender rules and financial mismanagement that saw some of its suppliers fraudulently winning a number of tenders by quoting the lowest bidding prices.

Burera District officials are accused of signing a contract with ELIOTEC Ltd (a supply company) for a tender worth Rwf5.1 million for the procurement of office stationaries, computer gadgets, scanners, printers, projectors and car-tyres, which were quoted at the lowest price.

Collusion

“The Auditor-General’s report highlighted abnormal prices on purchases of office items, where a computer scanner was bought at Rwf3,000; a printer at Rwf2,000 and a projector at Rwf10,000. Where do you get quotations of these items,” asked MP Cecile Murumunawabo, a member of PAC.

The legislator said such pricing showed collusion between the bidder and the person in charge of the tenders at a public office.

This was done in a bid to manipulate the prices of items to make it appear that the district was benefitting by buying many items at a cheaper cost.

“These are things we should watch out for as they are becoming a nuisance in public finance management. Bidders are exploiting tender laws and their provisions, which say that a winning bid should be the one offering the lowest price,” said Ms Murumunawabo.

“The bidder who enters into a contract with a public institution to supply items, includes things of no use and prices them very low.

The company eventually wins the tender but ends up not delivering them, even when other bidders gave quotations of reasonable prices and were cut off the deal,” added Ms Murumunawabo.

The district officials accepted that the procurement process was wrong and vowed it would not happen again.

Disappointed

“These are mistakes that should not have occurred. We are equally disappointed at the management and shall endeavour to have a clean audit in the next report,” said Florence Uwambajemariya, Mayor of the district.

Juvenal Nkusi, chairperson of PAC, called for financial or criminal liability of individuals that could have been behind such an erroneous tender process.

Out of Rwf7.9 billion recorded as gross mismanagement from different government business enterprises, Rwf3.2 billion was spent without any supporting documents; Rwf1.7 billion was spent on partially supported expenditure; Rwf2.3 was wasted expenditures; Rwf244 million was spent on unauthorised expenditure while up to Rwf400 million as spent on fraudulent activities.