these services. ‘The current process of [placing] advertisement[s] in the
media is time consuming and makes it impossible for departments to
advertise on short notice,’ Ngobeni explained in his report. Centralising
to the premier’s office would ‘enable Departments to buy media space
without the administrative burden of obtaining quotations,’ he argued.^2
In April 2010 , the province’s executive council ‘resolved to centralise
the communication services of all the provincial departments in line
with the turnaround strategy for communication’, according to a
damning report by National Treasury concluded in early 2013.^3
A prevailing story told by those with insight into the workings of
Magashule’s Free State is that ‘the fourth floor’, a reference to the
premier’s office in the Lebohang government building in Bloemfontein,
always had the final say in how the various departments spent their
budgets. In most instances, the control Magashule and his colleagues
exerted over these cash flows was through informal arrangements. The
2010 ‘turnaround strategy’ for media services, however, formalised
Magashule’s capture of this segment of the province’s expenditure.
The premier’s office now wielded an extremely powerful weapon. It
could determine how the province’s entire media budget would be
spent. While it was bound to favour people close to Magashule, more
importantly it could also withhold vital advertising revenue from media
outlets that were possibly viewed as too critical and too independent.
The provincial government’s new ‘implementing agent’ for media
services was quick to flex its procurement powers. In April 2010 ,
Magashule’s office issued tenders for ‘public information’, ‘media bulk
buying services’, ‘printing and distribution services’ and the ‘provision
of event management services’.^4 One of the benefactors of this set of
contracts was businessman Setumo ‘Tumi’ Ntsele, whose company,
nora
(Nora)
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