The Hout Bay Civic Association has condemned the awarding of a tender to a cleaning firm found guilty of contravening the Competition Act.
Top N Nos Services won the tender to clean toilets at Hout Bay and Llandudno beaches, but the association has called on the City to stop this tender.
“(This company) should be blacklisted and not be getting business from the City of Cape Town or government in any sphere or department,” it said in a statement on Monday February 27.
On March 18 2014, the Competition Commission eceived a complaint alleging that Top N Nos colluded with two other firms when applying for a tender to provide cleaning services at the provincial Department of Agriculture’s Stellenbosch offices.
The commission’s investigations found the respondents had agreed on how to price various items in the pricing schedule which they submitted when bidding.
Top N Nos pleaded guilty to the charges and was ined
R36 935.
The civic association said this had come to light after several current employees approached
its secretary after learning they would be out of work from March 1.
“The awarding of the tender to Top N Nos is in contradiction to the City’s pillars of building an opportunity city, an inclusive city and a well-run city. We call on the City of Cape Town, mayor Patricia De Lille and ward councillor Rob Quintas to halt and reopen this tender process as tax and ratepayers’ money cannot be given to such businesses. The Hout Bay Civic Association condemns all forms of corruption.”
However, Mr Quintas said council had been legally advised it could not exclude the supplier based on the commission’s ruling.
“The contractor was issued a fine and paid the fine for the transgression they were found guilty of. The supplier is therefore legally eligible to apply for the tender. They have not been blacklisted by national or provincial government. This is therefore a problem with the national database,” he said.
Questions sent to Top N Nos were not responded to at the time of going to press.
