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Council halts R55m contracts

The eThekwini municipality has put a stop to contracts, estimated to have a combined worth of more than R52 million, because the contracted companies either produced shoddy work or failed to finish the job. This has led to service backlogs and the city will now cough up millions more to hire new contractors to fix and finish the substandard work. It remains unclear whether the companies will be deregistered and blacklisted by the municipality. A report listing all the companies that produced substandard work and had their contracts revoked from July last year to March was presented to the finance and procurement committee recently. In one case, Umkhumbi Plant Hire and Civils was awarded a tender of R6.3m for freeway maintenance including Newlands East Drive, Newlands West Drive, Malandela Road and the Phoenix Highway.

The report said that the company failed, on several occasions, to do the work to an “acceptable level of service” and ultimately abandoned the site. Another contract the municipality terminated was with Shikani Trading. Shikani was contracted to upgrade gravel roads in KwaMakhutha, ward 94 for R5.5m in June 2011. According to the report, "it started the job at a satisfactory pace but nine weeks into the contract things became slow. A lack of proper site management and effective usage of resources led to work being carried out haphazardly, there was damage to properties and municipal services and poor site safety,” the report said. The contractor eventually abandoned the site.

The same company was awarded a contract for R2m to upgrade gravel roads in Folweni, ward 95 and another contract for R3.5m to upgrade Thasoso, Mvunge and Mkhandeni roads also in Folweni. Again it failed to complete the work. Last August, the contractor submitted a letter notifying the city’s roads provision department of its decision to withdraw from both contracts citing lack of finances, low tendering rates and the penalties that were being imposed. DA eThekwini chief whip Sharon Hoosen said the city now had to re-advertise all the cancelled tenders which delayed service delivery. “Once the contract has been re-assigned it takes two to three more months to get the tender back on track. The issue is that no action is being taken against these contractors,” she said.

She said the blacklisting policy set up by the municipality was not being implemented. Minority Front councillor Patrick Pillay slammed the screening process saying the municipality should be giving work to competent contractors. The municipality did not respond to requests for comment.

Source: www.iol.co.za

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Council halts R55m contracts

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