City wins collusion case

On Friday March 31 the North Gauteng High Court handed down judgment in favour of the City of Cape Town in its case against a number of construction companies that colluded in respect of the construction of the Cape Town Stadium in Green Point.

“The City is claiming more than R500 million in damages from the construction companies. The judgment relates to an objection by WBHO that the City could not rely on admissions made by other construction companies to prove its claim against WBHO. The court dismissed WBHO’s objection and ordered it to pay the City’s legal costs. This judgment paves the way for the City to recover the amount of damages that it has suffered as a result of the collusion by the construction companies,” a City statement said.

“Recently, a number of public entities entered into settlement agreements with the various construction companies in respect of damages that arose from the collusion. We have said before that this ‘Tirisano Trust’ is a slush fund set up by national government for the private sector. Instead of compensating municipalities and ratepayers for the R112 billion loss that they incurred, this R1.5 billion trust has been set up to help the private sector diversify instead of bringing justice to the residents of those municipalities. This settlement agreement entered into does not come close to compensating the public for the damages that were suffered as a result of the collusion by the construction companies.

“This is exactly why the City of Cape Town decided to pursue the matter independently and refused to rely on national government for proper recourse.

“After the judgement handed down on Friday we remain encouraged and committed to continuing to pursue the claim, in order to recover the monies owed to the people of Cape Town.”