Shady company at the centre of US$4m NBS storm

CONSTRUCTION firm Nengo Builders, whose documents could not be found at the Company Registry, is at the centre of a US$4 million tender dispute at the National Social Security Authority (Nssa)’s financial services provider, National Building Society (NBS), NewsDay can reveal.

This has raised concerns over lack of due diligence by the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe (Praz) and NBS before the company was awarded the contract.

Praz has denied that it failed to do due diligence.

“There was no interference as the matter was dealt with in accordance with the provisions of the public procurement law. The authority is not aware of these allegations that information was leaked and that (the chief executive Clever) Ruswa is close to Nengo Builders,” Praz said in responses signed by Ruswa.

NBS also denied flouting the tender procedures.

Investigations by NewsDay over the past few weeks failed to trace the company’s file (8119/99) at the Company Registry.

Insiders at the company registry say the company’s “returns” have not been in order since 2015.

The returns relate to, among other things, information about annual general meetings, which must be held at law as well as updated information about directors and shareholding.

Despite these shortcomings, NBS gave Nengo a contract to finish part of the 100 houses at its Dzivarasekwa housing scheme.

“It’s possible that the documents have been misplaced due to this manual filing system, but we are making everything electronic and a pilot project is already running,” an official at the Company Registry, who requested not to be named, told NewsDay.

“When the file indicates that returns are not in order, this means that even if they are there, then they were not properly done.”

The NBS issue was part of a raft of graft cases at Nssa, which resulted in the suspension of general manager Arthur Manase.

Manase was suspended more than a month ago on unspecified corruption charges that have been largely kept a secret. There are claims that he was being protected by Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare minister Paul Mavima, who has, however, denied the allegations saying that investigations were still ongoing.

The Nssa graft probe has turned ugly amid indications that the net has been cast wider to include companies and individuals outside the organisation.

A dossier seen by this publication shows that former NBS acting managing director John Mapiye was forced to resign.

Mapiye, who had come out tops on a series of interviews to take the number one post at NBS, was not appointed managing director as he allegedly refused to bend the rules to accommodate Nengo Builders.

Internal tussling saw Nssa officials recently storming NBS offices and seizing laptops and computers, in apparent breach of corporate governance procedure and the Banking Act.

A hurried board meeting was held to arm-twist Mapiye into re-tendering the housing project.

“In this meeting, I was instructed to cancel the tender and recommend to Praz that the tender be awarded to the top three bidders being Reegul (the originally recommended bidder), Nengo Builders and Blainesworld (the cheapest bidder after the re-evaluation),” read part of the documents seen by NewsDay.