THE United Bulawayo Hospitals (UBH) has deployed its general hands to carry out security duties after a dispute over a tender that saw two companies deploying security guards at similar posts at the institution.
By Staff Reporter
UBH terminated a contract with Nokel Security after its managing director, Kenneth Mhlophe took it to court challenging the irregular awarding of a contract to Cobra Security after a flawed tender process.
The matter is still pending in the Supreme Court. The problem started in November last year when Nokel made an appeal to the Administrative Court challenging the awarding of the tender with an annual value of $236 973,60 to Cobra, citing violation of the law.
Nokel argued Cobra won the tender after charging rates below the stipulated minimum as directed by Statutory Instrument 180/2010 of Security Companies.
On February 27, a judgement was handed in favour of Nokel and basing on the outcome, the security company deployed its guards to the hospital on the same date.
However, UBH failed to honour the judgement as Cobra refused to remove its guards from the institution.
On March 2, Cobra appealed to the Supreme Court against the judgement but the matter is still to be determined. Although UBH had been taking Nokel invoices, it did not honour them for the past nine months.
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Out of the nine invoices worth $306 000, the hospital only paid $24 932 and owes Nokel $281 000.
On November 30, UBH chief executive officer, Nonhlanhla Ndlovu wrote to Nokel advising the company that the health institution had ended the contract and they should remove their guards by December 1. On that day, the health institution deployed general hands and groundsmen to man security posts as the new internal security for the hospital.
This was done amid reports that most of the employees had been deployed to their previous posts as punishment for disciplinary issues.
Insiders said security at the hospital had been compromised because the general hands had no knowledge of security issues.
Efforts to get a comment from Ndlovu failed as her mobile phone was unreachable.
Mhlophe yesterday confirmed the development, saying the company’s viability was now at risk.
“Presently, there is a stand-off between UBH and us in that they are saying we should leave as they are no longer able to continue, while we argue that it would be contempt of court if we leave before the appeal is heard at the Supreme Court,” he said.
“Our lawyers have advised them but they continue to frustrate us. Their reason being that they, as a hospital, had chosen Cobra which charged less than the government stipulated rates.”
He said Nokel guards were now resigning in numbers due to non-payment of salaries caused by the UBH stand-off.
