PPADB appeals ruling in property lease tender row
Isaac Pinielo | Friday January 27, 2017 15:29
Both the Ministry and PPADB jointly approached the Court of Appeal seeking an order to overturn the High Court’s judgement and an order in which Varsha had been approved as the preferred bidder.
Varsha Enterprises is a company owned by property mogul Sayed Jamali and Zambezi Motors is an estate company, owned by businessman Ishmael Nshakazhogwe.
Varsha and Zambezi were the only companies that bid for the tender in which the Ministry required between 9,000 to 11,000 square metres of office space for the Accountant General in Gaborone, complete with a car parking lot for about 400 vehicles.
However, the court papers say it turned out that while Varsha had 10,957m2 of office space, Zambezi Motors had only 8,290.90m2 office space and 1,776.30 retail space at Zambezi Towers in the CBD.
In addition, Varsha Enterprises’ rate was lower at P99.68 per m2 while Zambezi Motors’ rate was higher at P106.40 per m2 for office space and P168.00 per m2 for retail space.
Ultimately, the Ministry and the Board approved Zambezi as the preferred bidder against Varsha Enterprises.
This led to Varsha instituting review proceedings at the High Court in which it sought the setting aside of the decision of the Board to approve the request of the Ministry to enter into pre-award negotiations with Zambezi as well as the setting aside of the adjudication of Zambezi as the preferred bidder.
The High Court eventually granted a judgement in favour of Varsha Enterprises against the Ministry and the PPADB.
In their appeal, the Ministry and the Board were both adamant that the High Court erred in finding corruption by the Ministry and finding complicity in corruption by PPADB.
Representing the Ministry of Finance, Advocate Stephen Vivian stated that the High Court erred in going outside of the pleaded case and making findings not contended for Varsha Enterprises in its affidavits.
He stated that there was no basis for the High Court in finding that PPADB “slept on its statutory functions and completely failed to discharge its mandate”.
Vivian prayed that the cornerstone of the judgement, which is the finding of crime, must fail.
“It is submitted that the referral of the matter for investigation by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) was not appropriate in the circumstances,” he said.
He further stated that it was not appropriate for the High Court to refer the matter to the Permanent Secretary to the President as well as the costs of the order which he said were “punitive” against the Finance Ministry.
The appeal was heard by a panel of three judges being Justices John Foxcroft, Michael Leburu and Brandt. Judgement has been reserved.