Total Client Solutions (TCS) is not satisfied the City of Cape Town “applied its mind correctly” in awarding its archrival Syntell the R100 million contract to manage the city's traffic fine collection service.
TCS MD Shaheed Mohammed says he has asked the city for information as to how the contract was awarded. He adds that the company “is reserving its rights”.
TCS, formerly Labat Traffic Management, has held the lucrative contract to manage the back-office functions of the city's traffic management service for the past five years. However, rival company Syntell is to take over this function from 1 July and hold it for the next three years.
Mohammed's main gripe with the city's awarding of the tender to Syntell is the stipulation that the back-office system must be able to process 130 000 transactions per month on a Microsoft SQL server.
“I do not believe anyone else has that capacity. We have developed that capacity over the past several years and no one comes close to that,” he says.
During TCS's contract period, it managed the back-office and fine collection process of the Cape Town traffic system, while Syntell managed and installed the camera system.
The appointment of two rival suppliers brought about tension culminating in a court case earlier this year, following Syntell's refusal to place its cameras at locations specified by the municipality. The municipality ordered TCS, as the prime contractor, to manage Syntell. The court ruled in TCS's favour.
Mohammed points out that TCS has tripled the City of Cape Town's fine collection revenue, from a monthly collection of about R5 million, to more than R14 million.
He says the loss of the Cape Town contract will have a material effect on his company, but that a growth strategy has been put in place to counter it.
“This year will be unaffected, because we still have a contract to collect the payment of fines for a further 18 months, but the following year will be affected. However, we are still used by 116 other local authorities.”
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