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Western Cape hospitals' security tender in dispute after interdict

A hospital security tender dispute has landed in the Western Cape High Court, with a company arguing it was most suited to service 17 high-risk provincial facilities.

Sechaba Protection Services obtained an interim interdict against several respondents including the Western Cape departments of health and finance and the provincial government’s acting director for supply chain management. The interdict will see the company continuing its services at the hospitals, until its application for the allocation process to be reconsidered is heard.

According to Sechaba managing director Adiel de Bruyns’ founding affidavit, the company was successful in a 2017 transversal tender meant to cover several different provincial government departments. “Despite being successful in terms of the old tender and the new 2017 tender, the applicant (Sechaba) has not been allocated any hospitals. This is in my view prima facie irrational.

“I do not understand how the applicant could be successful in terms of both tenders, but not be allocated a single hospital in terms of the 2017 tender,” De Bruyns said. The date for a handover to a new company was expected on October 1, which then prompted De Bruyns’ urgent interdict to continue its service until, among others, its risk grading of 79% was reviewed and set aside, and its application to be placed on the list of approved security providers for provincial hospitals is heard.

A hearing date for the review has not been set, but is expected early next year. Julinda Gantana, the Western Cape Treasury’s acting head official and accounting officer, said in the Western Cape departments of health and finance, and the provincial government’s acting director for supply chain management’s answering affidavit that Sechaba was disqualified from the majority of the health department facilities, which were mostly high-risk facilities, because of its risk rating.

Gantana said Sechaba knew, or must’ve known its risk rating since September last year. “The penny apparently dropped between 30 July 2019 and 14 August 2019, when the applicant was notified that its existing contracts under the old tender would be terminated and that other bidders for the new (2017) tender had received notification that they would be rendering services to the applicant’s sites,” Gantana’s affidavit said.

Source: www.iol.co.za

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Western Cape hospitals' security tender in dispute after interdict

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