The re-issue of an Armscor tender this week implies there wasn’t a successful bidder the first time around for the refurbishment of House Bella Vista.
Armscor tender EFAC/2024/09 replaces EFAC/2023/12 issued at the start of the year and calls for a CIDB (Construction Industry Development Board) registered company to submit a schedule of work to refurbish the Erasmus Castle, the better known name of House Bella Vista on the eastern side of the Armscor property in Pretoria. This is seen as a clear pointer to none of the 14 bids submitted by the March closing date as making the grade post evaluation.
Contractors wanting to submit tenders have to attend a bidders’ briefing on 31 October at Armscor head office and have a further 11 days to finalise and hand in tender documentation.
When the need for refurbishment became known, defenceWeb was informed a serious intervention was needed to return the historic building to its national monument status. A Pretoria architect who visited the structure ahead of the first tender issue noted “it is clear no maintenance has been done for years”. According to him “the house is at a point now where normal maintenance would not make a difference. A serious intervention would be necessary to prevent the structure of the verandas from collapsing. The roof of the tower is stripped and is most probably leaking. Scaffolding is currently holding parts of the house and roofs in place (I doubt that the scaffolding was erected for maintenance purposes). The outbuildings are in a relatively good condition (probably because they were relocated), but the graveyard shows signs of vandalism and neglect”.
The first tender, according to Liziwe Nkonyana, Armscor Senior Manager: Corporate Communication, was in line with the defence and security procurement and project management State-owned company (SOC) to ensure the building is kept at an acceptable standard as it is “a heritage site”.
