The IT Lynx Consortium, and not controversial oil dealer Sandi Majali, is suing Social Development Minister Zola Skweyiya for R149-million, the company said on Tuesday.
The consortium accused the Sunday Times on Tuesday of being ”inaccurate, misleading and mischievous”.
The paper reported Majali was to have received a contract to dispense social grants on behalf of the government.
The paper said Majali’s consortium was sent a letter stating that his information technology company IT Lynx Consortium was the Department of Social Development’s first choice for the R500-million contract.
However, the department pulled out of the deal after intervention from the National Treasury, which thought it too costly.
The contract dispute took place just months after Majali paid R65 000 for renovations to Skweyiya’s home and offered Skweyiya’s wife a job in another of his companies, Imvume Management.
Imvume has since claimed that the money was a loan that had been repaid.
Majali shot to prominence three years ago when his then little-known oil company scooped a R1-billion government oil tender.
In what is now known as the Oilgate scandal, it emerged that Majali had used an R11-million advance from the state oil company PetroSA to help the African National Congress’s 2004 election fund.
Although IT Lynx claimed in papers filed in the Pretoria High Court that it had been granted the tender, Skweyiya argues that ”a mere offer and acceptance of [IT Lynx’s] tender proposal could not constitute a formal contract”.
Skweyiya and the State Information Technology Agency (Sita) deny that the tender was ever allocated to IT Lynx, the Sunday Times reported.
IT Lynx chairperson Obbey Mabena acknowledged that papers had been served, but said Majali merely held a minority stake in one of the groupings in the consortium.
Mabena said the tender was not for dispensing social grants, as reported, but for designing and implementing a social grant administration system.
Sita issued a tender on behalf of Skweyiya’s department in 2001. The consortium responded and Sita accepted the tender ”– nothing more and nothing less”. The minister then endorsed the award, Mabena said.
The Treasury then apparently intervened to delay the finalising of a Service Level Agreement to implement the tender.
”A three-year period after the award of the tender was about to elapse and in order to avoid any claim prescribing, the consortium instituted action against Sita, also citing the minister and Treasury… The consortium’s claim against Sita is for [the] implementation of the tender and, only failing implementation, payment of damages,” Mabena said.
”The sensationalist and inaccurate report in the Sunday Times is a distortion of the true facts of the matter and designed to sabotage a valid contract awarded to a BEE consortium,” Mabena charged.
”The consortium has done nothing but pursue a legal right in the correct forum — namely the High Court of South Africa.
”The Sunday Times, however, believes that the issue is better adjudicated in the press. The attorney of the consortium was approached on Friday preceding the article by a journalist of the Sunday Times, seeking clarification of Majali’s role in the consortium and for confirmation of the status of the legal claim.
Majali’s role within the consortium was explained to the journalist concerned, but [the] Sunday Times chose to ignore the facts which were obviously less sensational than those the Sunday Times chose to report.
”The consortium … has no desire to litigate with Sita or the government and remains willing to negotiate with the role players for the implementation of the intentions expressed in tender 0082,” Mabena concluded. – Sapa