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City of Joburg's multimillion rand fleet tender mess

The contentious R1.2 billion Johannesburg fleet tender has mired the city in a legal wrangle after another R270 million vehicle-leasing contract the city wants to enter into.

Afrirent, the company that received a 30-month, R1.2 billion contract last year to supply more than 2700 vehicles, sent a stinging lawyer’s letter on Monday demanding that Johannesburg halts its plans to request approval to deviate from normal procurement processes in order to acquire 435 trucks and 72 motorbikes for R270 million over 11 months.

Business Day reported on Monday that Johannesburg wanted to invoke Regulation 36 of the Municipal Supply Chain Regulations in order to extend its current expired contract with Avis so as to not affect service delivery. This, however, drew the ire of Afrirent, which, through its lawyer, Carlo Messina of Messina Inc, threatened to interdict and review contracts awarded to any company except itself - accusing Johannesburg of “unlawfully circumventing our client (Afrirent)”.

In the letter to city manager Dr Ndivhoniswani Lukhwareni, which The Star has seen, Messina wrote that Afrirent had, since January until this month, warned Johannesburg before it “degenerated into a crisis” that Afrirent had the capacity to supply trucks and motorbikes to the city. “Our client is of the view that the deviation in terms of Regulation 36 does not apply since this crisis was self-created. You are therefore warned not to proceed with the above-mentioned deviation ,” Messina wrote.

Johannesburg spokesperson Nthatisi Modingoane defended the city’s decision as being above board. “The City denies a crisis. It is making business decisions based on its operations. Therefore, the city had no reason to be warned by Afrirent. The matter has been referred to our legal department and they are preparing a response to what appears to be unsubstantiated claims by Afrirent,” said Modingoane.

Afrirent gained infamy in October last year after The Star reported it would receive a contract which would cost Johannesburg R700m more than its previous fleet tender for half the time as the city’s previous vehicle agreement. The Star contacted Messina’s offices on Tuesday and spoke to a woman, who identified herself as Fatima. Fatima confirmed that Afrirent had requested a letter to be sent to Johannesburg and that Carlo Messina would call The Star back for comment.

Messina did not call back at the time of going to print.

Source: www.iol.co.za

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City of Joburg's multimillion rand fleet tender mess

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