GRALIO Precast, the company responsible for the construction of the Tongaat mall which collapsed on Tuesday, has been awarded yet another multi-million rand tender by the eThekwini municipality – this time for additional low cost housing units in the Cornubia Housing development project for which it will receive more than R101 million.
According to Zwakele Mncwango, the DA caucus leader in the eThekwini, this was revealed on Thursday during a finance and procurement meeting in the eThekwini city council.
“Gralio has benefited over and over again from large tenders, despite shoddy workmanship. This is highly questionable. eThekwini must cancel these tenders, and all government entities must blacklist Gralio immediately,” he said.
“Gralio has a history of shoddy workmanship. The Manase report, Department of Housing and the National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC) have all chastised this company for poor workmanship in recent years for various government housing contracts. In fact, the Manase report and the NHBRC have both called for Gralio to be investigated,” he said, adding that he would be writing to municipal manager, Sibusiso Sithole, calling for an urgent review of contracts that may have been granted by the city to Gralio.
“We will furthermore approach Treasury with this information to request that national government blacklist Gralio across the country. It is simply unacceptable that Gralio continues to land multi-million rand contracts from the city when they have a long history of shoddy workmanship; the latest of which has resulted in deaths and injuries.”
