South Africa

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Cameron Dugmore responds to Helen Zille

Cameron Dugmore responds to Helen Zille

It is telling that in all the responses to the finding against her by the Public Protector, Premier Zille has always referred to her son as an individual maths teacher and not the co-owner of the company Paper Video.

For the record this complaint had nothing to do with the quality of the products on offer by Paper Video nor is it an attempt to discredit those who initiated the company.

I personally engaged with a number of school principals about the product and they indicated that their learners found the content useful as did their various other learning resources. So this complaint has nothing to do with attacking the Premier’s son or Paper Video.

It has to do with the Premier’s conduct.  

This complaint would never have been laid if Zille had given her son’s company the correct advice from the outset. She never did this, resulting in whistle-blowers from within the Western Cape Education Department contacting the ANC (who are the opposition in the Western Cape Legislature) in 2017. They feared that the department was then about to enter a formal procurement process designed to benefit Paper Video above others.

The correct advice would have been to set up a meeting with the MEC for Education and request a pilot project to test the Paper Video Content in a workshop setting. For good measure, the Premier should have formally written to the MEC outlining the proposal made by Paper Video and requesting that it be given fair consideration and treatment as any other company would have been given.

The whistle-blowers pointed out that officials of the Department of the Premier, as well as the WCED, were managing this issue contrary to how an unsolicited bid, a pilot project or a partnership would normally be managed.

It is untruthful and a distraction to claim, as Zille does, that we waited for the appointment of the new Public Protector before lodging the complaint. We lodged the complaint as soon as the matter was brought to our attention in 2017 and we had sufficient facts.

It is also completely incorrect that I provided an amended complaint to the public protector. I submitted a formal complaint to the Public Protector and gave her staff access to the information provided by whistle-blowers.

Zille has every right to take this finding on review, provided of course that she does not use taxpayer’s money to do this. She should resist the temptation of attacking the person of the protector and rather focus on attacking the finding itself.

As Minister Motshekga says we should all welcome the contributions of volunteers to achieve quality education in our country. However, the difference here was that one company was given an unfair advantage over others. Officials made it clear that normal procedures were not being followed.

The conduct by the Premier, if not corrected, sets a dangerous precedent for the future. What is needed is clear guidance as to how a President, Premier, Minister or MEC should deal with such a request from a relative in the future. Again, as Minister Motshekga says, there should not be discrimination against a person with a contribution to make simply because they are related to the political principal. They must be given a fair chance. But there should also not be favouritism and unfair advantage which there was in this case.

The complaint had to do with the fact that the intervention by the Premier amounted to a breach of the Executive Ethics Code, and most importantly, did not allow a fair and transparent process to other service providers. Our constitution requires fairness and transparency in any procurement process. This applies equally to unsolicited bids.

Zille makes much of the fact that in one of her emails she wanted to make sure that other service providers would also be given an opportunity to utilise the tablets. This was never going to be possible. Her email was dated 23 September 2014 while the workshops in question took place on 6th October 2014. It’s clear that neither the WCED nor Department of Premier communicated with other service providers about this opportunity.

It is important to give some background about the company Paper Video which is co-owned by Paul Maree and his business partner, Chris Mills.

Paper Video is “ an edtech social enterprise founded in June 2014 with an audacious goal; the creation and distribution of quality educational resources that allow every student in South Africa to gain instant access to excellent teachers” ( from website papervideo.co.za)

1,250 of the over 10,000 exam questions and solutions videos can be accessed for free while the balance of the resources has to be purchased by users (from the website).

So it is clear that the company was established 3 months before the “proof of concept” workshops were held in October 2014. Zille disingenuously suggests that these were simply workshops which her son, who was teaching at a school in Khayelitsha, wanted to present.

There is no evidence that a formal process was followed in regard to what appears to be essentially an informal unsolicited bid to conduct a pilot project in Western Cape Schools from Paper Video

The only and obvious conclusion that can be drawn is that it was the direct intervention, by the Premier on behalf of Paper Video, that resulted in the creation of an opportunity for a single service provider to have the first bite at the cherry and install a learning resource onto the 150 tablets.

There is no evidence of an MOU being signed between Paper Video, the Department of the Premier and /or the WCED regarding this project. This was not just a case of a volunteer wanting to run workshops at a school. In such a case the volunteer or service provider would approach the school directly and, with the consent of the SGB, the workshops would have been presented.

This was different. The Western Cape has an after-school game changer and a project called “The Year Beyond” which involves former learners tutoring at identified schools after hours. This is run by both the Department of the Premier as well as the Western Cape Education Department. Thus, there would have needed to be a formal process to provide an opportunity to all potential service providers to provide tutoring solutions to be used in this provincial priority project.

This is what did not happen. There was no opportunity provided by the WCED or Department of Premier or the WCED for all service providers to be given an opportunity to do this. This was confirmed to us by the whistle-blowers.

The report compiled by Paper Video after the workshops clearly demonstrates that the aim of the Paper Video School Spring Vacation Workshops (6th to 10th October 2014) was “to jointly test the viability of the Paper Video Platform and the use of the Mecer Express Smartlife tablets, provided by the WCED Year beyond Programme, in an educational context. In addition, the workshops were used as a showcase to create awareness around Paper Video products and services”.

These are direct quotes from the Paper Video Report.

Yet Zille claims, commenting on the finding of the Public Protector; “She has found that I breached the constitution and the Executive Ethics Code in 2014, by supporting my son, a mathematics teacher working in a state school in Khayelitsha, to give free matric preparation workshops to learners in various impoverished schools”.

This statement by Premier Zille once again makes no mention of the company Paper Video of which her son was co-owner of from June 2014. Her rebuff simply focusses on “free matric classes” to “impoverished schools”. Either Zille genuinely does not understand the conflict of interest and unfair advantage or is being cynical in the extreme.

No other service provider was given the opportunity to test the viability and the use of the Mecer Express Smartlife tablets and to create awareness about their product.

These direct quotes from the report clearly amount to an unfair advantage to one service provider.

There is no evidence that the procurement of the 150 tablets for use during the September 2014 holiday period was part of the annual performance plan for either the E-learning Game Changer or for The Year Beyond Programme.

The email exchange reveals that emergency procurement was undertaken to secure the tablets arising from Premier Zille’s instruction based on the request to her made by her son Paul Maree and his business partner and Paper Video co-founder, Chris Mills.

It was not an educational software for examinations pilot open to all, it was in fact just a Paper Video Pilot. The tablets were delivered directly to her son. There is no evidence that any other service provider was alerted to the opportunity to load their software or educational resources onto the tablets or to conduct the September revision programme.

Many other schools have September/October revision schools. This one, however, took place because the Premier insisted on it and amounted to an exclusive opportunity for one service provider to test the product on the Year Beyond tablets. It was a provincially sanctioned revision workshop which gave an unfair advantage to one service provider.

The instruction to provide the tablets to Paper Video was unlawful, unethical and against policy.

The best route would have been for the WCED to consider an unsolicited bid from Paper Video for a pilot project. Such an unsolicited bid could have been considered on its merits and in line with policy. There is no evidence that this was done.

It is obvious that Paper Video obtained a clear advantage over other competitors in that, by being given exclusive access to the 150 tablets and the opportunity to conduct a pilot programme in October 2014, they in their own words were able to “use the workshops …as a showcase to create awareness around Paper Video products and services”.

Paper Video is a social enterprise which relies on both donor funding as well as sales from users. The exposure provided through the direct intervention of Premier Zille has clearly boosted the profile and credibility of the company. This amounts to unfair advantage. It does not provide all its products for free. Only a limited percentage of the products are free. (Website)

The deadlines imposed by Zille made it impossible for officials to provide this opportunity to other service providers.

As a member of the Standing Committee which has oversight over the Premier in the Western Cape Legislature, it was my responsibility to act on the information provided by whistle-blowers.

The route of a complaint to the Public Protector was a decision taken by the ANC caucus.

As the ANC we will be asking Speaker Fernandez to convene the legislature so that we can discuss the report of the Public Protector.

I urge Premier Zille to support this process and allow MPL’s to debate the matter. That would be the right thing to do. DM

Cameron Dugmore is an ANC MPL in the Western Cape who serves on the portfolio committee which has oversight of the Department of the Premier and also served as MEC for Education in the province from 2004 to 2008.

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