Doreen Segale, a witness in a case in which five Gaborone City Council employees are accused of altering tender documents in relation to a tender awarded to Daisy Loo on Thursday told the Court that Sithole, one of the accused, had told her that work on Segoditshane was to be paid for by the Ministry of Agriculture.
She said this during cross examination by the Director of the Directorate of Public Prosecution, Leatile Dambe.
Segale told the Court that this happened after Sithole had told them in a meeting that tenders for grass cutting should be stopped because the GCC did not have money to pay for them and she had asked Sithole why Daisy Loo was still doing the same job.
Segale also told the Court that her job during tender opening included recording proceedings, tender areas and amounts allocated for each company which had tendered.
She also revealed to the court that after the procedure was completed, two months later, Sithole came to her and told her that SA Skippers and Call-a-Skip had threatened to sue them after their tenders had been cancelled, saying that they felt that there might have been someone who had altered the figures another accused person, Stegling, had agreed on.
Before this, another prosecution witness former deputy GCC City Clerk, Molefi Keaja, had, under cross examination by Unoda Mack, representing Daisy Loo and its Director, Modiri Dijeng, continued his denial that he had known about the Segoditshane work from its start and that he only came to know about it when they were presented with a P24 million invoice.
After that, the defence lawyer put it to him that there were some Council meeting minutes in which the work on Segoditshane was refereed to favourably, adding that it appeared as if the only query was the requested amount of P24 million.
The former GCC Deputy City Clerk also denied any knowledge about a contract to cut grass given to Cleaning Wizards by a certain officer by the name of Goleba Gaefele, a junior officer in the GCC, whom he also denied knowing.
In another related matter last week, a lawyer acting for Daisy Loo, Mack Bahuma, confirmed that they had filed a case of contempt of court against the Directorate of Public Prosecution and the Botswana Police Service.
This, it is claimed, is because the two departments had gone against the orders of the Court of Appeal ordering that the cheque of P24 million be given to Daisy Loo. The DPP is insisting that the BPS is holding the cheque as evidence in the above mentioned criminal case.
