Johannesburg – Gijima, one of the country’s leading ICT providers and systems integrators, has emerged victorious in its legal battle to retain a lucrative multi-year contract it has had to supply services to the South African Police Service (SAPS).
The company, controlled by business tycoon Robert Gumede, is positioning itself to be a giant African ICT provider.
Gijima approached the Joburg High Court early this year following a decision by the State Information Technology Agency (Sita), on behalf of SAPS, to award a tender to maintain and support a “substantial” part of the private branch exchange (PBX) communication system to In2IT Technologies.
The PBX system includes the 10111 crime-reporting call centre.
Only Gijima and In2IT were bidders for the tender. Gijima argued in court that the decision to award the tender to its rivals was unlawful as In2IT did not meet the mandatory requirements.
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Judge Leonie Windell agreed with Gijima’s position: “As I have found that the respondents’ interpretation of the tender specifications cannot be sustained, the application must succeed. Gijima and AVS are the only entities that satisfy the tender requirements. They are the only entities authorised to service and maintain the remaining NEC and Mitel models,” the judgment reads.
Windell then declared the contract between Sita and In2IT null and void. “The decision of Sita to award the PBX tender to In2IT is reviewed and set aside. The decision of Sita is substituted with a decision to appoint Gijima, in partnership with AVS, as the successful tenderer in the PBX tender.
“Sita is ordered to conclude a memorandum of agreement, reflecting the terms of the provision by Gijima [in partnership with Advanced Voice Systems] of the services pursuant to PBX system tender, within 30 days of this court’s judgment in this application.” Sita and In2IT were ordered to pay Gijima’s costs.
In2IT spokesperson Liesl Simpson said the company would appeal the decision. “Having consulted with legal counsel, In2IT will certainly be applying for leave to appeal the order. In2IT’s response to the judgment will appear from its application for leave to appeal, which will be filed in due course,” she said. Gijima has been rendering PBX system services to the SAPS for over 14 years, where its contract had been extended on an ad-hoc basis on more than one occasion.
In February, the contract ended. Sita had argued that Gijima was only a “disgruntled” unsuccessful bidder trying to “abuse its monopoly to hold the government to ransom”. In2IT counts Eskom and Alexander Forbes as some of its customers.
Tlali Tlali, the spokesperson of Sita, said: “We will make known what our next steps are once we have obtained legal counsel on what our prospects of an appeal are. In addition, we would like to understand what the implications of this judgment are for us and for our client if this judgment is left unchallenged.”
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