Tribunal orders Emfuleni to provide documents to Cape Gate in excessive pricing matter

VAAL TRIANGLE - The Competition Tribunal has ordered the Emfuleni Local Municipality to provide various documents to steel producer Cape Gate, which alleges that the municipality excessively charged it for electricity in 2016/17. Engineering News reports the municipality, in its answering affidavit to the tribunal, denied the allegations against it. The tribunal has granted Cape Gate’s discovery application and has ordered the municipality to provide documents which the municipality had objected to producing during the discovery process and which it tendered but failed to produce. The tendered documents include, among others, the municipality’s management accounts, board meeting minutes, correspondence to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa and correspondence to Eskom in relation to electricity payments, issues of supply and/or electricity tariffs. During the discovery process, the municipality tendered to produce these documents but subsequently stated in its supplementary affidavit that, despite a diligent search, it was unable to locate these documents and that they may have been destroyed in a fire that broke out in its offices in May 2018 or been lost during the relocation of its offices. Cape Gate disputed the defences raised by the municipality for not discovering the tendered documents and requested the tribunal to go behind the municipality’s discovery affidavit and order it to produce these documents.

PHOTO: (Supplied)