Gauteng school nutrition tender battle heads to court

A fight for a tender has erupted between Gauteng National Nutrition Programme service providers.

A group of unsuccessful bidders recently approached the high court, which ruled in their favour by interdicting the Gauteng department of education from awarding a tender to 77 service providers.

This month, the department announced the successful bidders for a tender for procurement, storage, supply and delivery of groceries for pupils in primary, secondary and special schools for three years in 10 districts.

Unsuccessful companies approached court to stop awarding of tender

Seven days after the announcement, the unsuccessful companies approached the court to stop the awarding of the tender.

Steve Friedland, a lawyer representing UTE, one of the unsuccessful bidders said: “The papers revealed that several noncompliant, deregistered and even nonexistent companies with the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission were among those on the list of successful bidders for the multibillion-rand three-year contract.”

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One service provider said: “Some of the entities have been linked to corrupt officials and politicians.

“The integrity of the tender process has been compromised and we want the court to declare that no new players should be involved until the process is complete and transparent.”

In papers seen by The Citizen, the high court stated that the tender awarding process must be paused to allow the department to correct its errors.

Process paused to allow dept to correct errors

“The department clearly made a reviewable error in awarding the tender,” the papers read.

According to the document, the department failed to produce all the names of the bidders, but produced a list of successful bidders.

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The aggrieved companies said there were companies that did not meet the requirements and not even tax-compliant, but listed as successful bidders.

They said they were prepared to share their findings in court and with the South African Police Service for further investigation.

“Our investigation exposes deep-rooted corruption that compromises the integrity of the entire tender process. Immediate action is required, and we urge government and law enforcement agencies to take swift and decisive action to ensure the integrity of the tender process which was definitely manipulated,” said a bidder, who claims to know some of the corrupt officials.

If matter not resolved, it will affect over 1 600 schools

If the matter is not resolved urgently, it will affect about 1 662 schools in Gauteng North, Gauteng West, Sedibeng East, Sedibeng West, Ekurhuleni North, Ekurhuleni South and Gauteng East. The disputed tender is worth more than R9 billion.

Wayne Duvenage, CEO of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) commended the service providers for taking action against the department on the irregularities they uncovered.

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He said it appeared the high court was satisfied that there was enough evidence of possible manipulation to halt the award of the tender.

“Outa believes it is imperative that collective action is taken by organisations to oppose such conduct, as allowing situations of obvious tender irregularities and procurement manipulation to proceed without a challenge gives rise to wasteful expenditure and corruption.”

He added: “If their allegations are what they claim to be, we will not be surprised, as the Gauteng provincial government is notorious for dubious conduct and a lack of accountability when it comes to tenders of substantive value.

Gauteng ‘notorious for dubious conduct’

“We have seen this in the provincial department of health, whereby there is still little accountability for those involved in the corruption uncovered by the late Babita Deokaran, who was assassinated for her diligence and whistle-blowing efforts.”

Gauteng department of education spokesperson Steve Mabona has not responded to questions sent to him last week, while basic education spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga also failed to respond.

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