Landmark judgement on tender processes in PE high court

01 Feb 2016 | Admin Author

Government institutions and the private sector will be paying more attention to tender processes following the handing down of a milestone judgement by the High Court in Port Elizabeth.

The Black Lawyers Association of South Africa, Port Elizabeth law firm Joubert Galpin Searle, and Western Cape law firms Rehana Khan Parker & Associates and Z. Abdurahman Attorneys have successfully challenged the awarding of tenders by the Road Accident Fund to a new panel of law firms to represent the Fund.

In his judgement handed down last week, Judge Clive Plasket found that the Road Accident Fund had acted irregularly when it awarded a tender in August 2013 to appoint 34 law firms to its national panel of attorneys as the tender validity period had expired in November 2012.

The Judge further found that, in doing so, the Road Accident Fund did not follow its own internal procurement processes in an attempt to "rectify" the tainted tender process.

The Road Accident Fund has been ordered to initiate and finalise a new tender within the next eight months, and to pay the costs occasioned by the application to have the tender set aside