The North Gauteng High Court handed down judgment in favour of the City of Cape Town in its case against a number of construction companies that colluded when constructing the Cape Town Stadium.

The city is claiming more than R500 million in damages from the construction companies.

The judgment relates to an objection by construction engineering company WBHO that the city could not rely on admissions made by other construction companies to prove its claim against them.

The court dismissed WBHO’s objection and ordered it to pay the city’s legal costs.

This judgment paves the way for the city to recover the amount of damages that it has suffered as a result of the collusion by the construction companies.

Recently, a number of public entities entered into settlement agreements with the various construction companies in respect of damages that arose from the collusion.

“We have said before that this ‘Tirisano Trust’ is a slush fund set up by national government for the private sector,” Cape Town mayor Patricia de Lille said in a statement. “Instead of compensating municipalities and ratepayers for the R 112 billion loss that they incurred, this R 1.5 billion trust has been  set up to help the private sector diversify instead of bringing justice to the residents of those municipalities.”

The city was adamant that this settlement agreement that was entered into “does not come close to compensating the public for the damages that were suffered as a result of the collusion by the construction companies”.

“This is exactly why the City of Cape Town decided to pursue the matter independently and refused to rely on national government for proper recourse,” de Lille said.

“After the judgement handed down on Friday we remain encouraged and committed to continuing to pursue the claim, in order to recover the monies owed to the people of Cape Town,” she added.