MBOMBELA – The premier has been ordered to pay the legal fees of the applicants who requested the Pretoria High Court to set aside the awarding of a feeding-scheme tender.
Seven companies took the provincial Department of Education to court for irregularly awarding a tender to 17 service providers. They had to manage and operate warehouses and supply bulk foodstuffs, as well as fresh vegetables and fruit to schools participating in the nutrition programme for three years.
This week the High Court ordered Mr David Mabuza, who was inaugurated as the premier of the province on Thursday to begin his second and final term as the first citizen of Mpumalanga, as well as former MEC for education Ms Reginah Mhaule and HOD Ms Mohlasedi Mhlabane to pay the legal costs on an attorney-and-client scale of the losing tenderpreneurs.
Judge Ms Nicoline Janse van Nieuwenhuizen set aside the awarding of the tender, finding that some of the winning bidders submitted more than one bid contravening a resolution adopted by the bid committee to disqualify them. Five failed to prove their registration with the compensations commissioner or were not in good standing at the time of making their bids, and 14 entities submitted theirs after the closing date.
“I am of the view that the conduct of the officials involved in the adjudication of the bid process is abhorrent, shocking and a far cry from the constitutional values enshrined in the constitution,” the judge said. Janse van Nieuwenhuizen found that Mabuza failed to adhere to a court order to dispatch the bid documents of the losing and winning bidders, making it impossible to compare the validity of the documents.
She found that the absence of the documents indicated that either the bid committees kept no documentation, an irregularity in itself, or they were withheld to conceal impropriety.
The judge said Mhlabane also merely endorsed the decisions by the bid committees, deferring the adjudication “which in the absence of a delegation is unlawful”. She also failed to file the answering affidavit after filing a notice of intention to oppose the relief claimed by the seven applicants.
The judge said she agreed that “the deviations from fair process are symptoms of corruption or malfeasance in the process and the unfair process betoken a deliberately skewed process”.
Mhlabane has one month to consider and adjudicate upon the bid. In the meantime the status quo of the implementation of the awarded tenders are to be maintained until the readjudication. The education department said in a statement yesterday it was studying the judgement and its implications and would take an informed decision on the way forward once it had finished.
“The department remains committed to ensure that all its administration processes are beyond reproach,” said Mr Jasper Zwane, the communications head.
*This article has been corrected: Ms Ningi Mlangeni was identified as the HOD for education while she is in fact the HOD for social development.
