Primedia seeks to halt Prasa ad tender

A passenger railway advertising tender worth billions of rand, which was controversially awarded to a company that was allegedly not registered at the time, is being challenged in the South Gauteng High Court by the losing bidder, Primedia Outdoor. The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) awarded the tender for its national outdoor media advertising to Umjanji Media Consortium for five years, starting from March 1 last year. According to official records of the Companies and Intellectual Property Commission, Umjanji Media was registered only on April 23, 2010, while the closing date for the submission of tenders was March 11, 2010.

This will be music to the ears of the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union, which is on a national strike demanding the suspension of Prasa chief executive Lucky Montana pending a forensic investigation into tenders that the parent of Metrorail has allegedly irregularly awarded. Primedia Outdoor, a division of the Primedia Group, has launched legal proceedings against state-owned Prasa to have the tender set aside. The company contends that apart from Umjanji not being registered at the time of being awarded the tender, it did not attend the compulsory tender briefing either. Primedia Outdoor chief executive Michael De Charmoy confirmed last week that the high court application had been lodged.

The directors of Umjanji are registered as Jacques Pieter du Preez, whose residential address is listed in Randburg, Johannesburg, and Glen Allman Jordan of Kramerview, Johannesburg. Prasa spokeswoman Nana Zenani confirmed last week that the tender had been awarded to Umjanji, as part of a consortium led by commuter advertising specialist Provantage Out of Home Media. She said Umjanji was represented by Provantage at the compulsory tender briefing but she did not comment on the company not being registered at the time the tender closed. Du Preez, who is the managing director of Provantage, said the other members of the Umjanji consortium were SK Media and a broad-based women’s group.

He refused to comment on the allegation that Umjanji was not registered at the time the bids for the tender closed, saying the matter was sub judice. According to Engineering News, the tender includes all advertising and media branding on Prasa’s trains, terrains and stations. It entails billboard advertising at Prasa sites all across South Africa, including its rail reserves, stations and buildings, all its interior advertising, hanging banners, light boxes, ticket offices, digital advertising, as well as the branding of the exteriors and interiors of trains as well as Prasa’s Autopax buses.