Sipho Matshika, a former employee in the Office of the Chief Justice (OCJ), and his girlfriend Masabata Shuping are in the soup for fraud.
The duo appeared in the Johannesburg Specialised Commercial Crimes Court sitting in Palm Ridge magistrate’s court on Thursday.
Matshika, who worked in the information and communication technology (ICT) division, and Shuping were business partners and co-directors of Knowledge Net Consulting from 2007.
Matshika’s duties involved the drafting of bid specifications for ICT contracts at the OCJ.
According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), Shuping was also the sole director of Pursuit Knowledge Consulting.
NPA spokesperson Phindi Mjonondwana said Matshika, as part of his role at the OCJ, was responsible for recommending preferred bidders to the bid adjudication committee (BAC).
“On several occasions, Matshika was appointed to the bid specification committee and bid evaluation committee for various contracts, because of his expertise,” said Mjonondwana.
“Both these committees play a very important role in that they make recommendations to the BAC on the preferred bidder to be appointed.
“Pursuit Knowledge Consulting [PKC] was appointed as the preferred bidder on three occasions, to provide ICT solutions to the OCJ amounting to millions of rands.”
When it was chosen as the preferred bidder, PKC was tasked with providing anti-virus solutions after the OCJ experienced a malware virus attack.
In terms of the procurement processes of the OCJ Matshika was, by law, required to declare any conflict of interest in writing, if he was related to or knew the bidder.
“Shuping also had a legal obligation in terms of the SBDM form 4 to declare her conflict of interest if she knew of any person employed by government who might be involved in the evaluation of her bid.
“However, Shuping denied having any relations with anyone employed by government in the evaluation of her contract.”
After their court appearance, the duo was released on R10 000 bail each and the matter was postponed to September 26 for disclosure of the contents of the docket.
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