Official Statement by Thabo Mofokeng, eThekwini Municipal Spokesperson:
The contract was approved under contract no 1H13475 on the 24th February 2014.
The slow delivery of houses and services has resulted in public protests, Council being taken to court and various other demonstrations by different stakeholders within the City.
It was therefore necessary for the City to come up with a strategic development programme of accelerating housing delivery within eThekwini in trying to address the need.
The contractor, Zikhulise, was able to deliver on Phase 1 of the project despite the steep topography conditions of the site. Based on the high speed of delivery on this project, where the company delivered approximately 300 houses per month, a full complimentary quality monitoring team from the Provincial Department of Human Settlements, National Home Builders Registration Council (NHBRC), and eThekwini Municipality Inspectors have been dedicated on site, ensuring daily quality assurance.
These control measures are put in place to ensure that both quality and the pace of delivery is not compromised while endeavouring to achieve the Municipality’s housing delivery target and address the backlogs.
In the past other contractors failed to deliver due to the nature of the terrain in the area and social unrest.
In awarding the contract, the Municipality followed proper processes, as Section 36 is part of the Municipality’s Supply Chain Management Regulations.
In the past 2 years there are only two contracts that were awarded to Zikhulise namely:
- Umlazi Infill Part 5 Project: R463 288 770.70. Approved 21 November 2012
- Umlazi Infill Part 4 Project: R224 245 700.00. Approved 24 February 2014
It must be noted that the contract in question is coming to an end in June this year and a portion of the work in the area has already been advertised for a competitive bidding process. An award to a successful bidder is expected to be made in June.
This demonstrates that Zikhulise is not been unduly favoured but the company has been awarded the work purely based on its capacity to deliver according to expectations of the Council and the needs of the communities to which we are responding.
In addition, about 100 small contractors are benefiting from sub-contracting work as part of this project and hundreds have been gainfully employed.
The DA should not to be selective and only single out certain contractors for scrutiny. The Municipality awards tenders worth huge amounts to contractors of different races and gender.
