The Sunday News
Vusumuzi Dube, Senior Municipal Reporter
TEN companies, including TelOne had by close of business on Thursday submitted their papers for consideration for the long-standing Bulawayo parking management tender, Sunday News can reveal.
The tender was re-advertised last month after close to 10 years of a back and forth toil in awarding the tender, after the local authority was dragged to court by one of the initial bidding companies — Megalithic — that accused the council of irregularly cancelling their tender when the company had won it.
After the courts finally gave council the go ahead with the tendering, the city’s Town Clerk, Mr Christopher Dube last month flighted an advertisement in the local media calling for expressions of interests from companies for the designing and installation of the parking management system.
In the latest developments it has emerged that by the close of the bidding process on Thursday, 10 companies had submitted their papers, with the local authority now expected to deliberate on the submissions. Apart from TelOne, the other companies that are vying for the tender are City Parking, Tax GI Global, GKB Designs and Associates, Dande Mutande, UBIO, School of Java, Lauvax Trading Private Limited trading as ProPark, Grey Africa and Tendy Three Investments.
It is the bid by City Parking that is likely to send tongues wagging as the company had been blacklisted by the local authority’s audit team after it refused to cooperate on investigations that it had pampered four Bulawayo councillors with five-star treatment in a bid to influence the parking management system.
City Parking is a private company wholly owned by the Harare City Council which is mandated with on and off-street (parkades and parking lots) parking services in the capital. According to a council confidential report, the council’s audit committee decided to bar the Harare company from any future dealings as a means of protecting the Bulawayo City Council.
Allegations against the parking management company were that they had hosted the four councillors — Sinikiwe Mutanda (Ward 10), Sikhululekile Moyo (Ward 17), Frank Javangwe (Ward 13) and Mlandu Ncube (Ward one). The councillors had their hotel bills catered for by the parking management system company and were also taken for a tour of the projects managed by the company. The move was seen as trying to influence council to award the company the tender, something which was however, denied by the councillors.
Contacted for comment, Mr Dube confirmed that the tender was closed on Thursday but said he had no further details on the companies that had submitted their bids.
“Tenders are very sensitive processes. May we allow processes to take place with no interference. If tenders are not handled properly, we risk litigation from the bidders. I can only comment about tenders once the winner has been notified and the unsuccessful ones advised,” he said.
The initial bidding process brought the city’s tendering system under scrutiny, with accusations of corruption among councillors and directors flying around. First, Easipark, the South African company that was favourite to clinch the parking deal, was disqualified on allegations of attempting to bribe members of the procurement board to swing the bid in its favour.
The company was re-admitted and the tendering process re-done after consultations among stakeholders. Easipark was disqualified again, after it failed to attend a compulsory tender briefing meeting, which then saw Megalithic being awarded the tender.
