National Railways of Zimbabwe is being sued by a South African firm Diaspora Infrastructure Development Group (DIDG) for unlawfully terminating a $400m (R5.85bn) tender awarded to it in 2017.
DIDG, a consortium of Zimbabweans registered in SA, partnered with Transnet to recapitalise NRZ which allegedly failed to provide proof of funding within 12 months of the framework of their agreement. Then therefore Zimbabwean government, which owns NRZ, removed the “exclusivity clause” from the deal to allow other interested parties to approach the government.
This therefore led to the Zimbabwe government terminating the tender after a series of cabinet meetings and consultations with DIDG on July 30.
The DDIG claims that the cancellation was “grossly unreasonable” and argued that they did not breach any of the tender conditions.
As part of the deal, NRZ leased 13 locomotives, 200 wagons and 34 passenger coaches from Transnet.
