Staff Reporter
The installation of a new internal water reticulation system in Botshabelo’s Section R has been put on hold after the Free State High Court ordered the Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality to review the awarding of the multi-million-rand contract.
Trouble started after one of the companies that had submitted a tender for the project, Down-Touch Investments (Pty) Ltd, was disqualified from bidding for not meeting the project’s minimum requirements.
These were identified as a failure to provide an original bank rating certificate and that the curriculum vitae of the company’s personnel were not certified.
The municipality’s bid adjudication committee proceeded to award the tender to a partnership between Inathi Capital Projects (Pty) Ltd and Mbako Projects and Trading CC.
This prompted Down-Touch Investments to file an urgent court application seeking an interim interdict to restrain the metro from implementing the decision to award the contract to the joint venture, pending the final adjudication of the review application.
The Mangaung Metropolitan Municipality, Inathi Capital Projects Ltd and Mbako Projects and Trading were cited as the first, second and third respondents respectively.
After hearing the application, Judge Mpina Mathebula handed down his ruling on 10 February.
He interdicted and restrained the respondents from proceeding with the implementation of the project pending the final adjudication of a review application that was to be instituted within five days of the granting of the order.
The law firm Peyper Attorneys, instructing Advocate Willem van Aswegen who appeared for the applicant, confirmed the review process was underway in compliance with the court order.
“The review application was indeed issued in accordance with the order on 17 February 2022,” Sonel Pienaar from Peyper Attorneys told The Free Stater, adding that Mangaung had 15 days to file the record of proceedings.
In his ruling, Judge Mathebula had noted that, in disqualifying Down-Touch Investments, the municipality “rigidly adhered” to its requirements and “chose form over substance”.
“Counsel for the first respondent was at pains to advance arguments to sustain logic and justification for the requirement of certified curriculum vitae when originals were part of the returned documents,” the judge said.
“The requirement that the bank rating certificate submitted by the applicant was not an original despite it being electronically produced and stamped by the bank personnel seems to be far-fetched . . .
“On these grounds it is safe to conclude that the applicant has a strong prima facie case.
“The applicant, as a bidder, has a right to a fair and competitive tender process.”
The judge said the applicant would suffer irreparable harm and inconvenience if an interim interdict was not granted.
“It was argued that the community of Botshabelo will be inconvenienced more and denied access to precious water which is a human right,” he said.
“It may well be so, but that community certainly values more to live in a state governed in accordance with the principles underpinning the doctrine of the rule of law.”
Advocate Mosioa Mazibuko, instructed by Matlho Attorneys, appeared for the municipality.
The project is part of the metro’s efforts to address the water challenges that residents of Botshabelo have been facing over the years.
A water reticulation system helps water move from the original source to the consumer.