IF YOU have already bought your Mangaung African Cultural Festival ticket, I guess you’ll have to wait before showing it off to your peers- up until the court has ventilated the matter.
The annual MACUFE has been brought to a screeching standstill following an aggrieved bidder DS Consortium, having approached the High Court, citing irregularity and fraud.
It wants the department of sport, arts and recreation to nullify a multi-million contract between the department and C-Squared, since it did not possess an appointment letter.
The hearing was presented before Court in Bloemfontein on Monday afternoon.
The bone of contention: there is an on-going investigation report published by the Special Investigating Unit in December implicating C-Squared in possible tender fraud for PPEs.
Therefore, this means C-Squared should not procure any Government business until the matter has been finalised.
Its on this basis DS Consortium is contesting the matter and approached the highest court on land.
Senior counsel, Joubert Zietsman representing DS Consortium, told the court on Monday that the government cannot change the specifications of the tender after it was issued.
Zietsman also questioned the change of the venue for the Macufe event, and that the C-Squared did not have an appointment letter to host the event.
He says, “It is not sensible that C-Squared’s bid was not an acceptable tender and this was disqualified right at the outset. The answer that the first respondent gives and the second respondent doesn’t bid that either is at paragraph 49 on page 18 of the of answering affidavit.”
In response the department’s legal representative, Advocate Lungile Bomela, has dismissed allegations that the bidding process was designed to favour C-Squared.
Bomela cited that: “So you go there, you are assessed in terms of the criteria, you win once you win. You go to the table with the winning one and then you start negotiating and there’s nothing wrong with that. So what they referred to as the change of specifications is what happens post the winning. It has never happened. So that basically is the point. So there was no question of changing of specifications pre-winning.”
DS Consortium director Mosa Likobo, says facts show that in awarding the tender, the department deviated from the tender specifications, which resulted in C-Squared gaining an unfair competitive advantage to the detriment of the applicant and other bidders.
“The department’s acceptance of C-Squared’s tender amounts to an invalid act that falls to be set aside.
He said the law must rule and prevent organs of state from acting unlawfully and the awarding of the tender to C-Squared ought to be undone”.
“The department’s decision to award the tender to C-Squared is constitutionally invalid as it violates the requirements of equity, transparency and objectivity under section 217 of the Constitution.
The applicant (DS Consortium) was not given a fair opportunity to compete and it will clearly be in the interest of both the applicant, as well as the public, if the award of the tender is set aside,” Likobo said.
Continued Likobo:”The consortium then demanded that any service level agreement concluded between the first and second respondents relating to the impugned decision be struck down in accordance with section 8 of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act 3 of 2000.
That the tender be awarded to the applicant. Alternatively, that the department be ordered to re-evaluate the bids submitted and the tender to be awarded to the qualifying bidder who achieved the highest score according to the 80/20 preference points system. And if the highest bidders have equal scores, the tender must be awarded to the bidder who scored the highest number of preference points.”
In its defence the department insists that there was no malice in the awarding of Macufe’s event management contract to C-Squared.
For now, it’s unknown what will happen to MACUFE this year, and what about those who purchased tickets?
The matter continues in court.
Image (C-Squared group boss Ben Moseme).
