Gangster State

would help it manage its database of suppliers. It was known as the
Free State Supplier Management System, or the FSSMS.
The contract was first advertised in The New Age newspaper in May
2014 , according to a written response from the Free State Provincial
Treasury. The department received bids from four IT firms, but it
seems only Empire Technology ever stood a chance. ‘Other than
Empire Technology, all the other bidders did not meet the minimum
score for the functionality and were therefore disqualified,’ read the
response. At least one of the disqualified firms has contested this
assertion. ‘I can guarantee that we met the minimum score. We were
never informed that we didn’t meet the minimum functionality score;
we were simply told that we weren’t successful,’ the owner of one of
the three losing bidders told me. The auditor-general also questioned
the contract and found that it was irregular. Government departments
and entities are legally required to procure IT-related goods and
services through the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), but
the Free State Treasury had circumvented the agency when it appointed
Empire Technology, the AG found.^5
As it turned out, Empire Technology’s Free State boon was just a
stepping stone to an even fatter purse. In September 2016 , the Mail &
Guardian revealed that Empire Technology had clinched a R 171 -
million contract linked to South Africa’s controversial proposed nuclear
energy programme. The national Department of Energy had appointed
Empire Technology to supply an IT ‘management system’ for the
nuclear build programme.^6 Shantan Reddy’s latest success could be
traced all the way back to the Free State. Instead of opening a new
tender process, the Department of Energy had ‘piggybacked’ on the
Free State contract by exploiting a loophole in South Africa’s