KZN Tenders: The Dicey Stick It To The Dodgy

Two companies – each as politically connected as the other – have it out in court over awarding of contract.

- Jonathan Erasmus

DUBE TRADEPORT – A KZN-RUN parastatal long viewed as a cash cow of the politically connected, has just stuck it to a construction company long viewed as a recipient of dodgy tenders because of its connections.

On 21 May this year Judge Graham Lopes of the High Court in Durban ruled that the Dube TradePort Corporation was right in not awarding a 2016 tender for a bulk earthworks contract, valued at approximately R500 million, to Pinetown-based Aqua Transport and Plant Hire (Pty) Ltd but rather to Rokwil (Pty) Ltd from upmarket Kloof in Durban. Dube TradePort is situated at King Shaka International Airport.

Aqua was also rebuked by Judge Lopes because their “heads of argument are replete with nouns and adjectives designed to impugn the integrity” of both Rokwil and TradePort CEO Hamish Erskine.

Aqua brought the application to the high court in June 2017 after they lost the tender and a subsequent internal appeal. They were represented by Kemp J Kemp SC (Jacob Zuma’s favoured counsel) and Advocate Sarah Pudifin-Jones instructed by Naicker and Naidoo Attorneys.

“In my view it is both unfair and undesirable that review proceedings are brought to court on the basis of spurious allegations of impropriety, without the facts to back them,” said Lopes.

Lopes made Aqua pay everyone’s legal costs stating the multiple accusations they made in their Heads of Argument – effectively calling everyone else lying, swindling, cheating crooks – was poor form without producing a shred of evidence.

TradePort was represented by TG Madonsela SC and BS Khuzwayo instructed by SD Moloi and Associates. Rokwil was represented by LB Broster SC and MZF Suleman instructed by Pedersen & Associates.