Mall collapse company get R79m in contracts

Gralio Precast continues to cash in on multimillion-rand tender contracts from the eThekwini Municipality.

Durban - The controversy-riddled construction company, Gralio Precast, which is linked to ANC benefactor Jay Singh, continues to cash in on multimillion-rand tender contracts from the eThekwini Municipality.

This was despite the company’s having previously been chastised by government departments and the National Home Builders Registration Council for its allegedly shoddy workmanship.

Bimonthly reports on contracts awarded by the city in November and December last year reveal that Gralio scored a R74-million contract in November and a further R5 million a month later.

Both were for the construction of housing units in the Cornubia development. The reports were tabled before the city’s finance and procurement committee last week.

Gralio received the contracts amid continued delays over the outcome of the Department of Labour’s commission of inquiry into the collapse of the Tongaat Mall while it was under construction in October 2013. Two people died and several were injured in the tragedy. The commission hearing concluded in March last year.

A spokesman for Singh said Gralio had not yet been found guilty of any offence and would comply with the commission’s findings.

The mall was being developed by Rectangle Property Investment but was being built by Gralio. Rectangle Property was owned by Singh’s son, Ravi Jagadasan. Shireen Annamalay, Singh’s wife, owned Gralio.

Another construction company linked to Singh, Woodglaze Trading, was slapped with a R1.4 million fine by the National Home Builders Registration Council in 2014 for failing to comply with building requirements of a 96-unit housing project in Newlands West.

Singh was at the helm of Remant Alton, a private transport company that ran the municipal bus service between 2003 and 2008. In 2008, the company sold the bus fleet back to the city for R405 million after strikes by workers, a fire that destroyed 59 buses and repeated allegations of mismanagement. Remant Alton had originally bought the fleet for just R70 million in 2003.

Two years after the resale of the buses, Gralio began winning multimillion-rand building contracts for the Cornubia housing projects.

The contracts were flagged in the city’s Mansase graft report. The report alleged that the contracts had been irregularly awarded and that the houses built were of a poor standard. The buildings had also been condemned by the National Home Builders Registration Council.

The city tried to remove the company from the R101-million Cornubia project, but Gralio successfully appealed against that in court.

Labour Department spokesman Mokgadu Pela said the findings of the Tongaat Mall commission would be given to the national director of prosecutions within a month.

“The commission has completed its work. The findings are at the tail end … We are almost there. Within a month we would have given our recommendations to the national director of public prosecutions,” he said.

Municipal spokeswoman Tozi Mthethwa did not specifically respond to The Mercury’s query but said city tenders were awarded according to the supply chain management policy.

“There are no other additional or special criteria being used,” she said. “The process is so fair that before an award is made, bidders have an opportunity to appeal (against) such an award. The relevant line department oversees the work of each appointed contractor to ensure the work is implemented as intended.”

She said recent contracts in Cornubia Phase 1B had been distributed in seven sub-phases and not just to Gralio. However, Gralio did get the lion’s share.

Singh’s spokesman, Mervyn Reddy, said Gralio was yet to be found guilty of any offence.

“Whatever parts of the mall that we are asked to demolish, we will comply … Whatever the findings of the commission are, we will respect,” he said.

DA councillor Heinz de Boer said it was “very difficult to comment until tender processes were open to the public”, saying the city’s supply chain management processes needed to be “more transparent”.

“We need some sort of transparency at that level. Right now we don’t know who bid what, how many people put in contracts, how many people put in tenders, or anything to that effect,” he said.

His party would continue to do oversight visits at the Cornubia project, he said.

Mdu Nkosi of the IFP said Gralio continued to score from eThekwini tenders “because of connections it had in the city”.

“You can’t have a company implicated in a disaster this big continue to benefit from municipal resources. People died in the tragedy. It shows that the ANC is power-drunk. They don’t fear embarrassment,” he said.

“We had numerous problems in the city which were highlighted by the Manase report. We see these problems because the ANC in the province protected people like Jay Singh.

“If the findings and recommendations of the report were acted upon, officials and politicians would not be giving tenders to people of their choice.”

The Mercury