The lobby group Organisation for Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) is advocating for the appointment of a national commission of inquiry to look into collusion in the construction sector, rejecting a recent settlement between the government and the country’s major construction firms over tender rigging. On Monday, Outa released a revised report benchmarking the cost of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), saying the best information at its disposal pointed to a project that resulted in the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) overpaying on the project by at least 116%. Using three separate methodologies for benchmarking the cost of the project, Outa estimated that the fair value of the improvement of 190km of Gauteng’s freeways ranged between R8bn and R8.7bn. Despite this, information on the various tenders during the project was difficult to access, and there was prima facie evidence of various "anomalies" that had begged explanation, Outa chairperson Wayne Duvenage said ...

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