Tonota Council cancel costly chain collar tender
Tonota District Council has made a drastic u-turn on their plan to purchase two Civic Chain collars for the Chairman and his Deputy, following sky-high prices from the six companies that expressed interest to supply.
In a public notice issued on Monday, Acting Council Secretary, Onthatile Molelu wrote that the tender was cancelled due to administrative issues.
However, in an interview with The Voice two days later, Molelu admitted the tender was withdrawn because it was way beyond their budget.
“We’re a new full District so we didn’t know these things. We were shocked when we received quotes beyond P600, 000,” he said.
Molelu ruefully revealed the quotations were ten times more than their projected budgets.
“We simply did not have the budget – and even if we did, I don’t think we’d have splashed that amount of money on two chains!” he exclaimed.
“There should be a degree of reasonability. It wouldn’t make sense to spend so much on a chain, a mere necklace, while we fail to feed the poor,” he added.
Molelu told The Voice they’ve also realised that suppliers always inflate prices whenever they are dealing with government.
“The same people who quoted over half a million are now saying they can give us chains within our budgets. Why didn’t they do that in the first place,” wondered Molelu.
“This is a bad practice where people want to cheat government,” he said, adding the purchase of the two chains will be done at the right time and for the right price.
A quick search on some of the online sites like Masonic Shop, shows that the Council can get chains for as little as P11, 000, with the more expensive ones going for around P20, 000.
