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Independent Newspapers<\/p>\n
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Durban – <\/p>\n
A Durban High Court judge has stopped the award of a tender to build a \u201cvillage sewer\u201d on the Mzingazi Lake \u2013 the source of drinking water for Richards Bay \u2013 ordering a speedy review into why the lowest bidder for the job did not get it. <\/p>\n
The successful bidder, PMPZ Construction CC, a consortium of \u201chistorically disadvantaged individuals\u201d now has to move off site while the review, brought by WJ Building and Civil Engineering CC, is finalised. <\/p>\n
Judge Graham Lopes made the order in spite of concerns raised by lawyers for the uMhlathuze municipality that the community of Mzingazi Village may \u201creact unfavourably\u201d. <\/p>\n
He said \u201cthese problems are of the municipality\u2019s making\u201d. <\/p>\n
In his recent judgment, Judge Lopes said the tender for the sewer had been put out last year. WJ Building\u2019s tender was the second lowest at R8.7 million but the lowest tenderer was disqualified. <\/p>\n
In July, the municipality informed WJ Building that it had awarded the contract to PMPZ at a price of about R9.6m. <\/p>\n
WJ Building set about finding out why, asking for documents so that it could appeal or object to the award. <\/p>\n
While this was ongoing, it was advised in March that the PMPZ tender price had now dropped to R8.7m and it had been authorised to move on site, resulting in WJ Building launching the urgent interdict proceedings. <\/p>\n
The judge said the municipality acknowledged that PMPZ was not the lowest bidder. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut it seems to have awarded the tender on the basis that the accounting officer would, in terms of the supply chain management policy, negotiate the price difference between the two tenders.\u201d <\/p>\n
He said the bid evaluation committee had recorded that while WJ Building had been the highest scoring tenderer, with the lowest price, it should not be awarded the contract because it had benefited over the past five years from two major projects worth about R49.5m. <\/p>\n
The council wanted to encourage the rotation of service providers. <\/p>\n
The judge said the reasons put forward by the committee were arbitrary and did not appear in the tender invitation advertisement or procurement legislation. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhile it may be a legitimate objective, the need to encourage rotation was not expressed as a factor which would be taken into account in determining the successful bidder. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe award therefore seems to have been made on an unfair premise.\u201d <\/p>\n
The judge noted other concerns raised during the hearing, including that there was no sewer system in the area and that the villages were putting pressure on the present pit toilet system with the resultant danger of human waste contamination of the Mzingazi Lake, a source of water for Richards Bay and surrounding areas. <\/p>\n
There were also fears that the national treasury might reallocate the money for the project if it was not used before June this year. <\/p>\n
Because of these issues, Judge Lopes granted the interdict but ordered an \u201caccelerated review\u201d with strict time frames, essentially giving 35 working days for all documentation to be filed. <\/p>\n
The Mercury<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Independent Newspapers File photo Durban – A Durban High Court judge has stopped the award of a tender to build a \u201cvillage sewer\u201d on the Mzingazi Lake \u2013 the source of drinking water for Richards Bay \u2013 ordering a speedy review into why the lowest bidder for the job did not get it. The successful […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[8275,953,2143],"class_list":{"0":"post-19796","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-durban","8":"tag-newspaper","9":"tag-the-mercury","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19796"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19796\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}