Pretoria – Tasima (Pty) Ltd, the company which operates South Africa’s eNatis vehicle management system, has convinced the High Court in Pretoria that the transport department was in contempt for failing to pay a portion of money owed from a long-standing contract.
However, it is this same contract, with a total value of R1.8 billion and awarded in October 2010, that the department is currently asking the Constitutional Court to declare invalid.
Simultaneously, Tasima is being charged, alongside former transport minister Sbu Ndebele and eight other accused, for fraud, corruption, racketeering, and bribery related to the same contract.
Since being charged, Ndebele has been recalled as South Africa’s high commissioner to Australia.
This week, High Court in Pretoria Judge Neil Tuchten found the department and director general Pule Selepe were in breach of an order to pay Tasima R104 million, which the department had been ordered to do by the same court on May 6, by Judge J Basson, by no later than May 25.
After the department failed to pay, Tasima on May 31 brought an application before Tuchten to find the department and Selepe in “breach and wilful contempt” of Basson’s order and asking for imprisonment and costs to be awarded. On June 6, under pressure by Tasima and the pending court action, the department made payment.
“[Selepe] acted wilfully and mala fide [in bad faith with intent to deceive] [by failing to pay on time],” said Tuchten.
While imprisonment was no longer sought as payment had been made, a cost order had to be made. “I regret that this will give rise merely to an additional disbursement from the public purse,” said Tuchten.
Tasima developed and operated the electronic national administration traffic information system (eNatis) – the official register for all vehicle, driving licence, traffic contraventions, and accident data – from 2002 to 2007.
It then operated on a month-to-month basis until October 2010 when a new, now disputed, five-year contract was signed by then director general George Mahlalela.
In June 2015, on the back of an investigation into the new contract launched in 2014 by the Special Investigating Unit, the department successfully convinced the Pretoria High Court that the contract was invalid, but Tasima had this overturned on appeal. The Constitutional Court matter has yet to be finalised.
The criminal investigation, expected to continue next month, has already uncovered an alleged mountain of corruption, including hotel stays, air-tickets, Fifa world cup 2010 tickets, dodgy lease agreements, and in excess of R10 million allegedly paid to Ndebele by a private company linked to Sibusiso Ncube, who was also a middle-man in the re-awarding of the eNatis contract.
Ncube, a long-time ally of President Jacob Zuma, is married to KwaZulu-Natal local government MEC and African National Congress provincial treasurer Nomusa Dube-Ncube.
African News Agency