Outa has hit back at Sanral’s dismissal of its report on over-expenditure in the Gauteng Freeway Implementation project (GFIP), adding that the roads agency has “shot themselves in the foot”.
In a lengthy response published on its website, Outa said it stands by its “position and the substantive points made therein, along with the overall purpose and intent of the report”.
Sanral yesterday discredited the report put together and released by Outa in February, which compared freeway/highway projects from around the world similar to the GFIP, concluding that the project was overpriced by 321% per kilometre.
Among many of Sanral’s defenses was a claim that some of the projects used as comparisons could not be found and/or verified or obtained from Outa even after approaching the alliance through their lawyers and giving them a deadline to respond by 6th April.
“Outa does not deny that it received questions from SANRAL’s attorneys about the report,” Outa said.
“We responded to Sanral’s attorneys (Werksmans) and requested that the engagement takes place directly between Outa and Sanral, without the unnecessary costs of an expensive law firm, at the expense of the taxpayer…but have since been instructed that we must only engage through their lawyers,” Outa went on.
“The fact that Sanral couldn’t find one of the reports which we had referenced, doesn’t mean to say that report is non-existent. We would not be that stupid to reference a non-existent report… A simple deeper research into the site, would have revealed that the publisher had moved the report to another part of the site.”
Another defense made by Sanral was that Outa had made gross miscalculations and got figures wrong by 100,000%.
“Honestly, does Sanral seriously think we would misquote a cost in error to the tune of 100,000%,” responded Wayne Duvenage, Outa’s Chairperson. “Sanral should know better than to try and make an outrageous claim of this nature, before looking a little deeper into their grossly erroneous assertion.”
Sanral had also posed a question to Outa on the basis used to ascertain that international pricing should be a benchmark to determine the cost of infrastructure developments.
According to Outa, the problem is that Sanral thinks it shouldn’t conduct international benchmarking exercises and that the grounds for the use of international benchmarking are actually mandated by the Sanral Act: Chapter 3.
“Outa therefore asks once again, as was done in its position paper, why does it cost SANRAL so much more to build roads in South Africa, than it does for other parts of the world to do so,” it added.
“In answer to Mr Alli’s question ‘Did we overpay, or didn’t we overpay’, Outa remains of the sincere belief that society, through Sanral, has substantially overpaid for the GFIP project,” the agency said. ”
The agency said it’s preparing responses to Sanral’s 420 questions having conducted further and deeper research into this question and in will, in its soon to be released update on the report, add further substantiation to its position, opinions and claims on the matter.
“In short, they have shot themselves in the foot. It really is a sad state of affairs when an organisation of this stature gets it so wrong,’ Duvenage told htxt.africa.
You can read the full response on the Outa website.
[Source – Outa]
