EKURHULENI – On September 14, 2012 the municipality advertised an invitation to tender for the provision of roads maintenance and after the Supply Chain Management Policy was interfered with the project was halted.
Roadmac Surfacing and Khumo Ya Khumotso Construction were given the tender, however only a certain amount of money through tender proceedings is allocated to projects.
City Manager Khaya Ngema withdrew the tender (a non-award) from the two companies on January 14, 2013, but went on to give work to other contractors without following the process. According to court documents there is an amount of more or less R100 000 000 unauthorised expenditure at stake.
On February 7 the two companies took the matter to the South Gauteng High Court and on May 21, 2013 the case was heard by Honourable Mr Acting Justice Jordaan. The application was granted on June 7, 2013. The action of the City Manager has once again cost the Metro thousands of rands in legal fees. The Alberton RECORD highlighted this in an article on October 28, 2013 under the heading: “Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality (EMM) topped the list of legal fees as Gauteng Municipalities spent R63-million in legal fees” of which Ekurhuleni spend R33-million.
Clr. Berg (IRASA) said that Ekurhuleni has become known for spending millions of rands on court cases which they keep on losing, wasting ratepayer’s hard-earned monies. He further stated that the city manager should be held accountable for these monies wasted. They should rather spend these monies on cleaning our towns and for the upkeep of our parks, which is in a shocking condition, than waste it on court cases they keep on losing, he said.
June 25, 2013 saw the municipality and Ngema apply for leave to appeal against the court order, which had the effect of suspending its operation. Judge Mbha heard the contempt application in November 2013 and interdicted the municipality and Ngema from awarding the work to any other contractor until the outcome of the appeal. The City Manager will be in violation of Judge Mbha ruling by giving work out to contractors in fixing potholes. The fixing of potholes will have to be done in-house, for which the Metro has not the capacity seeing that they went out to tender.
The court order states, “The first respondent’s decision not to award a tender to Roadmac Surfacing and Khumo Ya Khumotso for the maintenance and rehabilitation of roads in three separate delivery areas on as-and-when required basis until June 2015 is set aside. This ruling by the court and actions by the Metro and City Manager in appealing Acting Justice Jordaan’s ruling can cost the Ekurhuleni Metro millions of rands in resurfacing the roads because of the lack of maintenance, which can have a huge effect on the maintenance budget for 2014/2015.
“The tender for the maintenance and rehabilitation of roads in three separate delivery areas on as-and-when required basis until June 2015 is awarded to Roadmac Surfacing and Khumo Ya Khumotso in accordance with the recommendations of Roadmac Surfacing Bid Adjudication Committee.”
The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality, the Department of Communications and Brand Management said, “The matter is pending and is accordingly sub-judice. The Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality is therefore unable to comment on the matter at this stage.”
