Department welcomes withdrawal of court action
02 December 2011
The Department of Community Safety, Security and Liaison welcomes the withdrawal of a court action by concerned security company owners who were bitter in relation to the recent appointment of new service providers to safe guard government property in Mpumalanga.
This is after more than four security company owners took the
department to the South Gauteng Court in Pretoria on Wednesday because of
allegations that the department awarded contracts to security companies from
KwaZulu-Natal.
They also alleged that there were irregularities in the process of awarding the security tender and pleaded to the court to issue an interdict to the department not to proceed to use the newly appointed service providers.
After arguments by both sides, the court withdrew the matter and ordered the applicants to pay legal fees.
The HOD, Mr Thulani Sibuyi, who represented the department in court, is
adamant that the department would have won the case even if it proceeded in the
court.
“The allegations were baseless and unfounded therefore the judges were going to rule against the applicants,” said Sibuyi.
He also refuted the information published by the media pertaining to the awarding of the tender, saying it was more of a fishing expedition. Sibuyi was satisfied in the manner the whole process of evaluation, adjudication and awarding of the contract was handled.
Contrary to the misleading information published over the past two
weeks, the facts on the security tender are as follows:
- Eighteen companies benefited from the tender of which only four companies were from outside the province, divergent to the rumour that the companies were from KwaZulu-Natal.
- As far as the department is concerned, no security company from
KwaZulu-Natal was awarded a tender; however, there are possibilities that
other companies might have branches or regional offices elsewhere in the
country.
- The security tender was open to all South Africans including
people from other provinces, so it is wrong for people to regionalize
government tenders with the expectation that only business people who reside
within the province were entitled to be awarded the tender.
- The evaluation committee visited the offices of the security
companies that were short-listed; it would have been difficult for the
committee to visit all the companies that submitted bids to the department.
- The allegations that the HOD, Mr Thulani Sibuyi is from
KwaZulu-Natal is unfounded. He was educated in KwaZulu-Natal and later
worked at that province before he joined the Mpumalanga Provincial
Government. Originally he is from Justacia, a village close to the Kruger
National Park. It should be noted that the HOD has no links to any security
company awarded a contract.
- The official from COGTA was not evaluating the tender; however, he
was part of the secretariat team that was assisting the committee
administratively.
- Over a period of three years, the total value of the tender is estimated at R1, 2 billion, without taking into consideration annual escalations, so the R4, 4 billion published is way above the estimated value.
For more information contact
Joseph Mabuza
Tel: 013 766 4055
Cell: 082 678 1450
Issued by Mpumalanga Department of Community Safety,
Security and Liaison
