Pretoria - City manager Dr Moeketsi Mosola will next month give a progress report on the process to procure a new service provider to replace GladAfrica.
In a late-night decision last Thursday, the council resolved to terminate a multibillion rand contract with GladAfrica with immediate effect.
With the backing of all political parties in the council, it was resolved that Mosola must expedite the process of advertising the tender and allow potential service providers to bid for it.
The municipality will this time shy away from invoking the Municipal Supply Chain Management’s Regulation 32, used to award the three-year contract to GladAfrica.
In terms of the law, the regulation can be used to adopt the same approach taken by another organ of state to obtain a service.
In that instance, the City adopted the procurement method used by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA).
It obtained names of 26 companies in line with the regulation from the DBSA to compete for the contract, and GladAfrica was chosen as the successful bidder.
In January the Auditor-General revealed that the City had incurred irregular expenditure amounting to R317834291 from non-compliance with Regulation 32 in relation to the appointment of GladAfrica.
Despite the fact that the contract would be terminated immediately, GladAfrica would continue to submit invoices until June for the 34 projects that had already been implemented under its watch.
The council indicated that no new jobs must be given to the company. It was projected that the company would have pocketed at least R250m by June. This was in addition to almost R500m it had netted by February 20.
The council also said that Mosola must be in charge of all administrative and legal processes leading towards the cancellation of the contract.
Executive ayor Stevens Mokgalapa, who tabled the report requiring the council to end the contract, would be expected to exercise his political oversight during the cancellation process, according to council.
Mokgalapa said it was important that the matter be resolved to enable the new political leadership to focus on fast-tracking basic service delivery to residents.
“When I came into office two weeks ago, I promised the people of Tshwane that I would deal with GladAfrica decisively in order to put service delivery back at the centre of this administration's agenda."
He said he had instructed that all the Auditor-General’s findings concerning irregular expenditure be strictly implemented.
“This administration will also look into building in-house capacity for project management.”