A great and instructive story in the ST today about the husband of the Minister of Tourism, Ms Kubayi-Ngubane. His company landed a tender to fix the Oracle database software used by the North West Provincial Government to manage their HR and financial systems.

The company has been paid R307 000 per month since 2015 for the job. According to the Auditor General it still doesn’t work. This is hardly surprising as the company is not an accredited accredited partner and, in the words of the Oracle spokesperson, “non-affiliated”.

It would likely have been a lot cheaper and effective if the NW provincial government had contracted an Oracle accredited partner, but hey, having a politically connected tenderer is so much more empowering.