Security company hails City of Cape Town court interdict

More than 400 security personnel who faced unemployment breathed a sigh of relief for now after the Western Cape High Court interdicted the City from terminating the services of a private company.

Star Security Services launched an urgent application to challenge the City’s decision to end their services at the Council sites they safeguard with effect between April 30 and May 1. They also requested that the appointment of any other service providers who successfully tendered for the contract to take over their services be prohibited pending an outcome over the tender process.

The City was ordered to immediately allow the personnel to continue rendering the services and the other service providers were also served the order preventing them from working at the sites pending the return to court. In his affidavit, Star Security Services managing member Kassiem Brey said the City irregularly excluded the company from the tender process by declaring them to be non-responsive due to its “declaration of interest form”.

“The company submitted a timeous bid in terms of the new tender and the bid submission was responsive, it met all the mandatory requirements in terms of the tender. In terms of price, its price was significantly lower than other bidders and was identified as a preferred bidder for the new tender,” Brey said. “In December 2021 the requested clarification related to a declaration of interest form' regarding my spouse, who is in employment of the SAPS. My wife is employed in an administrative role,” he said.

The declaration of interest form relates to whether bidders, the directors, members, friends or family are employed by the City, or are somehow involved in the evaluation of tenders as this is a legal prohibition. There is also a further general question whether anyone, such as a spouse of a tenderer is in the employment of the state, which Brey said is broader than being employed by the City.

“It is important to emphasise at the outset that there is no legal prohibition against awarding tenders to bidders with a spouse in the employment of the state. When I completed the form, I did not appreciate the full import of the question. Upon being alerted to my error, I corrected it.

“The City simply informed the company without providing any reasons, that its tender submission was unsuccessful. The company exhausted its internal remedy, the internal appeal was unsuccessful. In the circumstances, the company had no other option than to seek urgent relief from the court. Then the City issued a notice requesting that it vacate its sites by the end of April 2022,” Brey said.

Star Security Services legal representative Mark Hess said his client and the 430 employees were extremely happy that they succeeded with their urgent court application. “The order in favour of our client was granted just hours before hand over of the sites to 16 Service Providers. At least for now the jobs of the employees have been secured. My client is of the view that his company has been unfairly and unlawfully excluded from the tender process,” Hess said.

Mayco member for Corporate Services Theresa Uys said: “A panel of service providers were appointed after a tender process was concluded. The Service provider was not successful in its bid for the tender. “Tender 213S/2020/21 was advertised in November 2020 and closed in January 2021. The tender was awarded in December 2021 and the company was not successful in its bid for the tender. As the matter is sub judice, we are unable to provide any further details at this stage,” Uys said.