DA-led City of Tshwane intensifies war on Moipane Fleet

The DA-led City of Tshwane was pulling out all the stops to get out of its contract with fleet management provider Moipone Fleet entered into in 2016 by the ANC administration.

The City is asking the Gauteng High Court in Pretoria to overturn the tender, claiming that it was not legally entered into. The City and Moipone have become regulars in court, with various legal battles ensuing between the two over the past few years.

Moipone last month lost its bid to provisionally interdict the City from doing business with anyone other than themselves. In this week’s bid to overturn the Moipone tender, the City cited numerous reasons as to why it felt that its agreement with the company was flawed from the start. “The respondent was awarded the tender in circumstances where it did not have the ability and competence to execute it.

“It’s this inability which resulted in unlawful so-called ad hoc arrangements, and it is literally relying on the City’s old service providers to assist it to render the services for which it was appointed,” the City said in papers before court. It also asked for an order declaring the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) reached between the City and the respondent on March 24, 2016, to be made constitutionally invalid.

The City also wanted an order forcing Moipone to pay it the profits earned by the company in terms of the PPP agreements. The court was told that the PPP agreements were concluded without the prescribed requirements being satisfied and it was thus invalid. One of the gripes was the final draft contract between the City and Moipone, which was signed, but never published for public comment.

Another complaint was that it was never established at the time of concluding the PPP agreements whether it provided value for money or was affordable. The City also claimed that certain of the agreements were fraudulently waivered and that former city manager Jason Ngobeni, who “purportedly” represented the City, agreed with Moipone to extend the time period for the fulfilment of certain suspensive conditions.

It was said that Ngobeni was never authorised by the council to amend these agreements. According to the metro, Moipone never qualified from the start for this tender. However, Moipone has maintained that it was a legal and binding contract. It denied any shortcomings and said it should be allowed to continue providing the fleet management service to the City until the contract runs out in 2021.

As there were too many disputed facts in this case, Judge Neil Tuchten, by agreement between the parties, agreed that the matter would be referred to oral evidence. No date has been set yet for the next hearing.