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Fidelis Munyoro-Chief Court Reporter

The High Court has blocked Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund (Zimdef) from awarding a tender for SAP software application services to Tano Digital Solutions (Private) Limited, pending determination of what one bidder called a “restrictive, unreasonable, and anti-competitive condition implanted by Zimdef”, requiring bidders to hold a SAP licence.

Zimdef awarded Tano the disputed tender on December 9 on the strength of this additional condition. Tano is owned by businessman Wallen Tawanda Mangere.

Unsatisfied with the decision, one of the other bidders, Twenty Third Century Systems (Private) Limited, took the matter on review to the High Court on account of this condition to hold a licence. 

SAP is a German multinational software corporation based in Walldorf, Baden-Württemberg, that develops enterprise software to manage business operations and customer relations and is generally considered at least a leading such software and by some the top of the range

Justice Owen Tagu on review found in favour of Twenty Third Century and suspended the awarding of the tender until the pending dispute is finalised. 

Twenty Third Century Systems, which was represented by Advocate Method Gatsheni Ndlovu, had been providing the service since 2015. 

This time, when Zimdef published a notice calling for an informal tender for the provision of an SAP software application services, it put a clause that sought to bar most potential bidders from being considered for the tender. This prompted Twenty Third Century Systems to complain to Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe and challenged the “anti-competitive” clause in the tender that shut out other potential bidders. 

Despite a pending dispute in the courts, Zimdef went ahead and awarded the tender to Tano. This sparked the dispute which spilled into the High Court.

In its application, Twenty Third Century had listed Tano along with Zimdef and the Procurement Regulatory Authority of Zimbabwe as respondents.