City admits irregularities with jewellery project

Staff reporter

The city of Cape Town has admitted that a lucrative contract awarded to a Johannesburg-based consultant to set up an "African Jewellery City" was never put out to tender. According to the Cape Argus, the city awarded former SA Local Government Association chief executive Thabo Owen Mokwena’s company with a contract worth more than six million rands for consultation work on the first phase of the proposed jewellery precinct. City manager Wallace Mgoqi says the first part of the project was regarded as a closed bid, because of the intimate knowledge and networks that Mokwena’s company had on the project. City of Cape Town Media liaison, Sputnik Ratau, says the project has been launched to create jobs, in the cities where it has been implemented…