Alarm over e-toll bidder

NO RECORD: COMPANY ‘REGISTERED DAYS AFTER TENDER WAS ADVERTISED’

‘Entering into new contract while future of e-tolls is uncertain makes no sense.’

Bulletin on August 8. It was republished on August 16, with a closing date of September 5. Prospective bidders had to attend a compulsory tenderer’s clarification meeting on August 19.

Duvenage said the date on which Kusa Kokutsha was registered indicated that it did not have a track record as a business and that through its directors, it was linked to outgoing contractor, Electronic Tolling Collections (ETC).

“Thus appears to be ETC in a new guise,” he said.

The other two bidders for the tender, according to Outa, go by the names of Phambili joint venture (JV) and SAETO.

It said Phambili submitted a bid of R11.399 billion, while SAETO did not list a bid amount.

Duvenage said business registrations for the Phambili and SAETO could not immediately be traced because there was insufficient information on the Sanral document to identify them.

The tender for the continued management of e-tolls was issued by Sanral because its existing contract with ETC was last year extended by a year until December 2.

Sanral confirmed to Moneyweb on Monday that it was evaluating tenders it received for the continued management of e-tolls.

Sanral spokesperson Vusi Mona said that in accordance with the tender programme, a new contractor must be appointed to start work by December 3. Mona said the contract was for a period of 72 months, with an option to extend for another 24 months.

“Provision has been made for a handover period in the tender programme, to ensure that there is no interruption of e-toll services,” he said.

However, Outa warned on Tuesday that Sanral risked incurring wasteful expenditure by entering into a new contract, because the Gauteng e-toll decision was still subject to a legal challenge.

Duvenage said for Sanral to enter into a contract while the country awaited Cabinet’s decision on the future of the e-tolls made no sense.

“However, that is not Sanral’s only problem because there is still a court case pending on the objection to nonpayment,” he said.

“Should the public be found not liable for payment of e-tolls, the already defunct scheme will be dead in the water and the country may be legally bound to a contract for up to six years.

“This may very well become a matter of fruitless and wasteful expenditure for which civil society or even the auditor-general could hold an individual to account.

“We can’t understand why Cabinet is taking as long as it is to make an easy decision to scrap this defunct scheme,” he said.

Ayanda-Allie Paine, a spokesperson for Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula, said the task team report on e-tolls has been sent through for Cabinet processes and her understanding was that e-tolls would be included in the discussions by Cabinet “at some point before the end of the year”.

Paine stressed that everything continued as normal until Cabinet’s final announcement on e-tolls, adding that this also meant Sanral would be remiss to not issue any tender or advertise anything in line with its processes.

Sanral risks incurring wasteful expenditure