Carlo Petersen
A LOCAL construction company is hauling one of the City’s main tender-implementing agents to court for mismanagement and failure to pay R8 million.
Good Hope Construction (GHC) has filed an application in the Gauteng High Court seeking a final court order to liquidate Aecom.
Aecom handed GHC a contract to refurbish City-owned flats in Manenberg, but failed to pay GHC after the City cancelled its contract with Aecom in August last year.
In court papers, GHC director Ridwaan Rajah said Aecom was to pay GHC R7 896 242.18 by January 2015, but this was not done. In GHC’s founding affidavit, Rajah said his company applied for liquidation on the grounds that Aecom is unable to pay its debts.
“Since 2014, Aecom began defaulting on various payments due to us. I was told that Aecom did not have sufficient funds to pay us,” said Rajah.
In August last year, the City cancelled its multimillion-rand contract with Aecom for issuing an “unauthorised stop works order” in Manenberg, where the Community Residential Unit Refurbishment Programme had already been delayed by more than a year.
Twenty-four families from Dina Court had endured a second winter living in fishing containers while waiting for their homes to be refurbished.
In 2014, Aecom employed Filcon Projects, which filed for business rescue after facing more than 10 liquidation applications dating back to 2010.
Aecom faces liquidation the same way Filcon did in 2014 when it was declared insolvent after being linked to fraud and tender irregularities. Filcon had been contracted in 2012 and 2013 to oversee housing and school projects in the province, worth R400m.
Aecom gave contracts to H&I and GHC to work on the upgrade project in Manenberg last year.
H&I hired construction company Robdyl, owned by former gang boss Rashied Staggie’s right hand man Rollen “Watson” Olince, as a security provider. The move sparked a massive gang war, further delaying the project.
Mayco member for human settlements Benedicta van Minnen instructed Aecom to “remedy the breach” as Robdyl was not a registered security company.
She said the City refused a claim from Aecom for additional time and expenses to complete the project despite its assurance that Robdyl’s services had been terminated.
“In terms of Aecom and the City, the City cancelled the contract with Aecom during August 2015 after it refused to return to site to continue work on the project in Manenberg,” Van Minnen said last year.
Aecom executive Leon Kemp confirmed the company’s attorneys had received the court summons.
“At this point, I am unable to make any comment as the matter is now in our legal team’s hands,” said Kemp.