The Pietermaritzburg High Court on Friday dismissed an application that would have stopped negotiations over the building of the new King Shaka International Airport north of Durban.
The entities that the unsuccessful 13 applicants sought to prevent from doing the work are Group Five Construction, WBHO Limited, Mvelaphanda Holding and Ilembe Consortium.
In their papers, the applicants said that they had been unfairly disqualified as a bidder for the work.
Aveng (formerly Grinakers) was one of the applicants that sought to interdict the Dube Tradeport, the KwaZulu-Natal government and the Airports Company South Africa (Acsa) from proceeding with the work.
The application was heard on an urgent basis and Judge Jan Hugo said that the applicants were free to pursue an application for review.
The applicants had, however, failed to show in the papers before court that they had prospects of success, but on review other facts and arguments could be placed before the court that could lead to a different conclusion.
The MD of Dube Tradeport, Rohan Persad, was jubilant at the decision and said he looked forward to concluding negotiations in March or April.
Hugo said that the interests of the respondents (Dube, the provincial government and Acsa) would be detrimentally affected by the application sought. So would the interests of the public in its expectation of holding the 2010 World Cup Soccer and having a proper and functional airport thereafter.
Hugo said that the bid of the applicants did not comply with requirements in three respects:
the applicants proposed in its tender a 5% performance guarantee, whereas the minimum requirement was 10%;
the tender documents required a 70% local procurement guarantee, whereas the tender offered a 40% or 50% guarantee; and
changes were made in the terms of the proposed agreement that could, in the eyes of Dube Tradeport, shift the risk from the contractor to the owner.
— Sapa