The Democratic Alliance has called for a halt to the Western Cape’s multimillion-rand film city project, claiming that wrong decisions were ”deliberately made”.
However premier Ebrahim Rasool’s office says due process was followed, and that anyone unhappy with what happened can launch a court challenge.
DA finance spokesperson in the province Robin Carlisle said on Thursday he would ask for an urgent meeting of the standing committee on economic development to discuss the bidding process and a document in his possession.
He said the document, which summarised the recommendations of a powerful team of provincial officials, confirmed that the ”wrong bidder” had been appointed and that the studios would be in the ”wrong place”.
The winning bidder, announced in February this year, was filmmaker Anant Singh’s DreamWorld consortium, which said it intended to start construction on the Cape Flats site in the first quarter of 2005.
However Carlisle said the officials’ document showed that based on six key criteria the Cape Town Motion Picture Studios (CTMPS) consortium was ”clearly” a better option.
He said the document was presented to Rasool, then economic development MEC, in August last year.
Carlisle said the officials said CTMPS would have its site ready in six months compared to the two to four years needed by DreamWorld, and that CTMPS would require far less public funding than DreamWorld.
The officials also gave the thumbs up to CTMPS’ proposed site at Culemborg in the city centre, as opposed to DreamWorld’s site at Vergenoegd near Khayelitsha.
Rasool’s spokesperson Redi Direko said on Thursday the premier was satisfied due process was followed and there were no irregularities.
”If the losing bidder is unhappy with the process they can test it in court,” she said.
The technical report formed only part of the process of weighing up the bids, she said. ”The decision did not rest on that report alone.”
CTMPS could not be contacted on Thursday evening. – Sapa