Railway Tender in Court Again

Jana-Mari Smith

16 June 2011

SHETU Trading, which has been challenging the awarding of a tender for the delivery of rails for the northern railway project, on Tuesday succeeded in having their case treated as urgent by the High Court.

At the centre of the case is an attempt to stop the delivery of rails brought in by a South African company for the railway extension project.

On Tuesday, the High Court gave Shetu Trading the go-ahead to apply on an urgent basis for a court order stopping VAE SA, the South African company that won the multimillion-dollar railway tender in August last year, from delivering 6 745 tons of rails to the Ministry of Works and Transport later this month.

Legal advisers for Shetu Trading confirmed yesterday that a judge agreed that an urgent application could be heard and that a decision on the matter would be handed down today or tomorrow.

Shetu Trading has been battling the awarding of the railway tender to VAE SA since September, when a case was launched at the High Court to have the contract reviewed and set aside.

George Simataa, permanent secretary in the Ministry of Works, has been cited in his personal capacity as a respondent in the case, following accusations by Anna Mbundu, executive director of Shetu Trading, that the PS had interfered on behalf of VAE SA in the tender process.

Mbundu stated in earlier court documents that the tender process was marred by “gross irregularities” and she wants the court to review the tender process.

Although she launched the case last year, the ministry and VAE SA have continued to implement the tender, and VAE SA has allegedly already delivered over 6 000 tons of rails.

Shetu Trading’s lawyers at Lorentz Angula confirmed yesterday that the High Court “made a ruling that the case is urgent”.

This is the second urgent application brought by Shetu Trading this year. The first application was dismissed in April by the High Court – a decision that is being appealed in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court appeal hearing had been set for July 15.

According to Shetu Trading’s legal team, this second urgent application is relying on “new facts that came to our knowledge”.

Mbundu states in the urgent application lodged this week that while the ministry was aware that the tender award is being challenged, enquiries from Shetu Trading and her legal team regarding the status of implementation were “either ignored or met with obfuscation and secrecy”.

She argued that the supply of rails should be stopped until the review application is heard, otherwise a victory for Shetu trading could be an “empty victory the setting aside of the award will be meaningless if it occurs after all the railway lines had been delivered”. She said the rails were ordered by the ministry and by VAE SA although they knew that the tender was being challenged.

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