Megalithic sues Bulawayo council for breach of contract

A Bulawayo based parking management company, Megalithic Marketing (Pvt) Limited has sued the Bulawayo City Council for contempt of court after the local authority failed to comply with High Court orders, which dismissed its bid to cancel a tender that was initially won by the firm.

The lawsuit comes amid emerging revelations that Harare firms have been tipped to take over the tender.

Megalithic Marketing, represented by its directors, Charles and Moreblessings Musema, a couple filed an application at the Bulawayo High Court accusing the local authority of contempt of court through failure to effect the tender for it to manage parking space in the city against the court's ruling.

In its application, the company cited BCC, Bulawayo town clerk Christopher Dube and chamber secretary, Sikhangele Zhou as respondents.

"On October 7 2011 first respondent (BCC) advertised for bidders for a parking management system tender for a five year period commencing from January2012," read the application in part.

"Applicant participated in the tender process and the first respondent's (BCC's) adjudicating committee's findings without considering same on the merits and they subsequently placed another advert for a re-tender."

Aggrieved by council's decision to re-tender, Megalithic Marketing approached the High Court to challenge the re-tender and Justice Lawrence Kamocha set aside council's decision.

"… the court made pronouncement that the first respondent's decision to re-tender was unfair and capricious towards the applicant, who had come out as the highest bidder," the company submitted.

Council was not satisfied with the clear terms of the order and filed a chamber application … to be allowed to have option to abort the previous tender process.
Council's application was dismissed.

In June 2017, council wrote to the company saying its tender had not been successful for lack of experience and aborted the tender process without awarding any bidders.

The company submitted that council was in flagrant disorder of the court order by failing to award the tender to the highest bidder.

In its response to the application, the council said when it advertised for tender in the parking management, it clearly stated that all will be done according to council policy.

"Three companies (among them) Greywolf Trading and EasiPark lodged their tender documents, which were evaluated by the respondent's inter-departmental committee," council submitted.

Council said applicant's bid was also accepted, but later the council's procurement board felt the whole tender had been marred by several irregularities and recommended a re-tender.

The council said based on these reasons, the court should dismiss Megalithic Marketing's application.

Megalithic Marketing directors say the local authority continues to defy the court processes and it emerged that Harare companies were being tipped to take over the tender.

The three companies that reportedly submitted their bids include ProPark, Duscretion Logistics [Pvt] Limited and MSP Parking and the council allegedly accepted Ducretion Logistics (Pvt) Ltd and ProPark proposals.