Health department wins leave to appeal waste tender ruling

The high court in Johannesburg has granted the health department in Gauteng leave to appeal against a decision in which it set aside a medical waste disposal tender award worth more than half-a-billion rand.

The companies will continue waste management services in the interim, pending the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) hearing and judgment.

The high court ruled it would be unfair to expect the department to “scurry around” looking for new service providers for now.

The department granted tenders worth roughly R525m to Tshenolo Waste and Phuting Medical Waste, a decision contested by losing applicant Buhle Waste.

In October last year, Tshenolo Waste was awarded a R314m contract to collect and dispose of medical waste in Tshwane and Johannesburg, while Phuting Medical Waste received a R211m contract for the West Rand, Sedibeng and Ekurhuleni regions.

But in the following month, Buhle Waste urgently applied to the Johannesburg high court to interdict the two companies from starting their services, pending the outcome of a review of the department’s tender awards.

All three companies are 100% black-owned.

Buhle Waste was founded in 1997 by David Sekete and has a long track record of public sector work.

Tshenolo Waste, led by chief executive Malusi Molewa and founded in 2010, also has thousands of projects under its belt.

Phuting Medical Waste has been in operation for several years and was an unsuccessful bidder in a contested KwaZuluNatal health department tender last year, which Buhle also contested.

Buhle argued that the Gauteng department of health had failed to adhere to proper processes when it asked for extensions of the bidding period.

This meant awards to Tshenolo and Phuting were unlawful.

For a bidding period to be extended, the department has to request and obtain the consent of all bidders before the period lapses.

Buhle said this was not done. The department argued, however, that it had acted properly.

In late November, Johannesburg high court judge Ahmed Cajee agreed with Buhle that the awards were unlawful.