1. Ndaba doesn’t get it most of the time. However, his confession that the man he is defending has never won a government tender is gold. Let me explain because what it reveals is worse than you can imagine. I see a lot of people have a misunderstanding of a “government tender” 
2. When government wants ta service or product, it floats a tender. It’s a call to contractors to make their bids. At law it’s called an invitation to treat. The idea of floating a tender is to have fair competition among contractors. The government chooses the most competitive
3. Therefore, when a contractor “wins a tender” it means it has gone through a competitive process where it’s offer has been accepted. This is legitimate. Ndaba has just told us that his client has never won a government tender. But note, he has not said he never got a contract.
4. This is the nub of the matter. If Machakaire or his associated companies are providing a service or products to the government or its entities it means he got the contract without participating in a legitimate tender process, which is far worse in terms of impropriety.
5. Whether or not he or his companies are providing a service or goods to the government or its entities is a question of fact. If so, the probe would be how, since he never won a tender, he got the contracts. That is where suspicions of nepotism, cronyism & corruption come in.
6. Here is an example: in 2016, a company called APR won a tender for Dema Power Project. However, it was taken away & Sakunda Holdings, owned by Tagwirei was awarded the contract privately. Classic cronyism. Sakunda didn’t win a tender. It got a corrupt private contract. See?
7. Sakunda also got the contract for Command Agriculture where government officials admitted that billions of dollars vanished. There was no tender. Unfortunately people mistakenly say Sakunda got a tender. That’s being unwittingly generous. It was a crony private arrangement.
8. Now, imagine someone who was then sub-contracted by Sakunda to provide a service under Command Agriculture. If you say he got a government tender he will say it’s not true & he would be right. But he did get a contract from a crony under a a corrupt program.
9. He would be supplying goods and services to the government, albeit under the cover of another contractor, in this case Sakunda. This is how you lift the veil in corrupt public contracts because cronies simply hide behind one big entity that is essentially a front.
10. So don’t bash Ndaba when he confesses that Machakaire has never won a tender. He has scored an own goal for the team & if Machakaire was well advised he would be unhappy with Ndaba. If we had a competent anti-corruption authority this would be a piece of cake. But we don’t.
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