CEO responds to accusations that he betrayed his employee's anonymity.

Cipro CEO Keith Sendwe stands accused of betraying the trust of his employee, chief operations officer Melanie Bernard-Fryer.

Last week Noseweek reported that Bernard-Fryer had authored a document that contained allegations of improper process in the award by Cipro of a R153m tender to little known Valor IT. The tender has been shrouded in controversy but Cipro stuck to its guns and awarded it to Valor-IT to develop a new Enterprise Content Management platform.

Bernard-Fryer made her disclosures to Sendwe under the Protected Disclosures Act with the understanding that he would protect her identity. However, Noseweek reported that Sendwe promptly circulated her disclosure document to members of the Cipro executive team. "Within a week copies were circulating in the department - and at Noseweek," the magazine reported.

Moneyweb contacted Sendwe for his response to these allegations. He denies failing to protect Bernard-Fryer.

"In the interest of transparency and sound corporate governance it was important to discuss the contents of the document with the executive management team of Cipro who are responsible for the running of the business," notes Sendwe. "The document did not contain anything new as the team members were already aware of the issues raised in the document. All concerned were asked to report anything of concern to the internal auditor."

It was reported that Bernard-Fryer was suspended after she refused to sign the "business case" of the Valor-IT tender. But Sendwe says this is also incorrect. "Ms Bernard-Fryer was suspended because of the need to investigate other, unrelated matters." He did not elaborate what these matters might be.

The Valor-IT contract has been marred by controversy but Cipro has stuck to its guns and continued to award it the tender. Noseweek previously reported that the Valor IT website was plagiarised from its well-known competitor Gijima AST (JSE:GIJ).

Sendwe responds: "Please note that the website content of bidders did not form part of Cipro's tender evaluation process.  Having investigated this it has been established that Valor-IT had contracted a service provider to develop their website, not knowing that the content was in fact plagiarised. May we kindly refer you to Valor-IT for more information on this issue?"

Sendwe says that a forensic audit into the tender was completed about two weeks ago. "The draft audit report revealed that the approved Cipro supply chain management process was followed and no one was implicated to be guilty of any irregularities. However, the final report is not available yet."

Last month Moneyweb sister publication Polticsweb detailed widespread fraud at Cipro.

Write to Julius Cobbett: julius@moneyweb.co.za

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