Black-owned ICT services provider Gijima is confident it will hang on to the R1.5 billion Transnet contract.
This, after the state-owned company appealed a recent court ruling that dismissed its urgent attempt to compel Gijima to complete critical data migration and disengagement work under the lucrative tender.
In a statement to ITWeb, Gijima says it believes Transnet’s application for leave to appeal has no prospect of success, which is not only supported by the scathing judgement, issued last month by Judge AJ Minaar, but more so the punitive costs orderedagainst Transnet.
Earlier this year, Transnet sought an urgent court order compelling Gijima to finalise its disengagement from Transnet’s IT environment – including migrating data centre services, SAP workloads and the company’s Active Directory – by 30 June.
Transnet also wanted an interdict preventing Gijima from disrupting any services during the transition.
Gijima opposed the application, arguing that key factual disputes remained and that it could not complete the required work because Transnet had not provided a workable transition plan or shown that it was technically ready.
Transnet is appealing the ruling based on 17 grounds, arguing that the state-owned company, together with partner Microsoft, “have the necessary technical capacity, infrastructure and equipment to immediately disengage, migrate and host the majority of the remaining services which were not mainframe services”.
In its application, Transnet argues that the court erred in several respects, including misinterpreting Gijima’s obligations to migrate both mainframe and non-mainframe applications.
‘Failure to discharge obligations’
Says Gijima in its statement: “On 16 October 2025, acting justice Minnaar handed down his judgement which dealt factually, comprehensively and decisively with the material shortcomings of Transnet regarding its failure to discharge its obligations in terms of the master services agreement with Gijima and in particular, the disengagement process.”
According to the company, the judgement severely and correctly criticised Transnet’s premature application, which it brought on an urgent basis before the High Court, which was exacerbated by the evidence given by Transnet’s own witnesses during oral evidence.
The judgement noted that: “Transnet’s decision to approach this court prematurely and urgently resulted in extensive litigation… It follows that the foundational step of the mainframe migration process had not occurred when the application was launched, as Microsoft [Transnet’s partner] had not yet commenced the analysis of the mainframe.”
It adds that this was confirmed by Microsoft representative Ravi Bhat, who undermined Transnet group chief information officer Pandelani Munyai's testimony that Microsoft had been ready to migrate Gijima's services to the Azure Cloud services.
“It is difficult to reconcile this evidence with Mr Munyai's assertion that Transnet was ready to take over the services at the time of launching the application. The gap between the accounts of Mr Munyai and Mr Baht is striking…Despite being aware of this crucial shortcoming, Transnet elected to proceed with its case,” it notes.
“What is glaring from the above is that factually speaking, Transnet’s witnesses, including Microsoft, conceded Transnet’s lack of readiness, cooperation, technical capability and theskilled personnel to assume the services it sought to compel.”
Gijima adds that Microsoft conceded Transnet’s lack of readiness to assume the services, which the judge picked up on when he stated that Transnet “had no transition plan, no technical readiness, and no clarity on how the most critical component (the mainframe) was to be migrated.
“Indeed, Mr Bhat explicitly conceded that even the initial assessment necessary to determine whether the mainframecould be moved had not begun by the time of launch, nor was it complete by the time oralevidence commenced.”
According to Gijima, this extract, among others from the judgement, highlights how misleading the application for leave to appeal is.
“Transnet is not ready to transition, was not ready at the date of its urgent application and it’s highly unlikely that it will be ready by the time the application for leave to appeal is heard.
“The application lacks real and justifiable grounds insofar as the merits of the matter are concerned. It is no more than an exploitation of the already strained judicial systemand does not take into account the ongoing and prejudicial expenditure of the fiscus.
“It is common knowledge that Gijima has a wealth of experience in disengaging and transitioning services due to it having rendered such services over many years to skilled and experienced clients. Gijima thus reiterates its readiness and willingness to disengage from Transnet as required by the agreement.”
Workable transition plan
Unfortunately, it adds, Transnet is not in a position to assume the services, among other reasons, by failing to provide a concrete and workable transition plan, in particular in respect of the migration of data on the mainframe.
Gijima points out that pursuant to the judgement, its chairman Robert Gumede engaged Transnet’s group chief executive in an attempt to reinstate disengagement discussions without impacting the logistics services of Transnet and the country, but unfortunately Gijima’s efforts were rebuffed.
The ICT services firm says it remains ready and willing to engage with Transnet regarding its exit from the expired agreement, but Transnet leadership refuses to engage with the company and has referred it to their attorneys instead.
Gijima management believes they have been vindicated by acting judge Minnaar’s scathing judgement and that it is unfortunate that Transnet management relied on flawed technical and legal advice.
Notably, it explains, in December 2024, Transnet formally instructed Gijima to terminate all services to it.
“When Gijima did as instructed, chaos ensued as Transnet’s and some of its client’s operations were grounded to a halt, which prompted and forced Transnet to retract its instruction and requested Gijima to resume services together up until June 2025 in terms of an extended agreement.”
Gijima says it has since been requesting a written instruction from Transnet to the effect that itstops providing services and that Transnet assume such services, bearing in mind that it is Transnet’s version that its environment is ready to render the services.
“Gijima will require an indemnity from Transnet who must take responsibility for any consequences,” it concludes.
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