Gangster State

spent virtually none of its allocation from the national fiscus. If the
province could not spend its money, the new premier’s administration
would come under serious fire from the national government, which
could lay claim to any unspent money the province had received
through conditional grants. An affidavit filed in court explains: ‘If a
conditional allocation has not been spent by the end of the financial
year, it reverts to and must be repaid to the National Revenue Fund,
unless the National Treasury is satisfied that the unspent allocation has
been committed to identifiable projects.’^9
Over and above the R 1. 3 billion the department had received from
National Treasury to build ‘sustainable human settlements’, it had
another R 120 million that had rolled over from the previous financial
year. Magashule risked having R 1. 42 billion taken away from his
province because of the FSHS’s inability to spend its allocation.
‘If you don’t build houses and spend money during the first two
quarters of the financial year, it is pretty much a lost cause,’ explained
another former FSHS staffer. ‘December and January are known as
dead months in the construction sector because of the holidays, so
you’re not going to catch up during that time.’
As the tender had now lapsed, the department seemingly had no way
to appoint a large group of contractors in a short space of time so that it
could spend its budget. At the July meeting, the bid adjudication
committee therefore resolved to cancel the tender and instead draw up
a database of service providers made up of ‘but not limited to’ those
who had submitted bids for the lapsed tender.^10 The database could
therefore include companies that had not even submitted bids in the
first round.
This was not the only problem. Of the 361 companies that did submit