China State Construction Engineering Corporation South Africa (CSC) has hauled parastatal uMngeni-uThukela Water (UUW) to court over a water tender dispute that appears to have turned ugly.
A bloody, dead rabbit, a bullet in an envelope, eight Chinese “heavies” and ChatGPT are at the centre of a disputed R7-billion tender for the construction of a water plant in KwaZulu-Natal.
These details emerged in the Pietermaritzburg High Court this week.
The case surfaced in February when CSC hauled parastatal UUW to court.
In October 2024, CSC lost a bid to build the waterworks even though its joint venture with another Chinese-owned company, Base Major, was R1.8-billion cheaper than the winning bid by South Africa’s (SA’s) Icon Construction.
CSC is reputedly the biggest construction company in the world, involved in projects in 100 countries, according to its website. In 2009, CSC was blacklisted by the World Bank for collusive practices in the Philippines.
CSC South Africa is involved in a host of projects, including the construction of sections of the N3 between Durban and Pietermaritzburg. In February, CSC brought an application in the Pietermaritzburg High Court to interdict UUW from taking steps to award the waterworks tender.
CSC claimed that UUW irrationally and unreasonably regarded it as non-compliant based on a lack of technical experience and issues related to translating documents from Chinese, among other issues.
A consent order
The February court action continued in March, where a consent order between the parties agreed that the tender would be put on hold, pending a final court determination at a later date.
In terms of the order, UUW had to provide a record of the tender decision, and deadlines were set for the submission of affidavits.
Later, in correspondence, lawyers argued about the disclosure of confidential price-sensitive information and AI-generated “case law” that UUW reportedly relied on to make the tender award.
Late last week, UUW applied to the court to rescind the March agreement because it alleged the court order was perpetuated by fraud.
UUW said Base Major did not support the legal proceedings.
UUW is represented by Andile Khoza, a director at the law firm Strauss Daly, who made an extraordinary affidavit motivating his argument ahead of this week’s court proceedings.
He said Base Major company bosses were intimidated into joining the court action and were threatened with death by CSC employees if they didn’t.
Khoza said in an affidavit deposed by CSC’s Chao Wang he claimed he was authorised to bring the application against UUW on behalf of his company and Base Major, using attorney Adine Abro.
But, Khoza said, on 16 March, he received a letter from advocate Alistair Glendinning, who acted for Base Major, saying that it was unaware of the legal proceedings until company bosses read about them in a Sunday newspaper.
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Glendinning was asked to secure a meeting with CSC to find out about the case because Base Major was a majority shareholder in the joint venture and had no part in launching legal proceedings.
Glendinning didn’t get a reply from CSC, so his attorneys got hold of Abro, asking on what authority she acted for Base Major.
She sent correspondence from Base Major, including a company resolution.
The correspondence said the CEO of Base Major, Stephen Jinpu Lu, had evaluated legal proceedings and supported CSC along with the other directors, Feng Sun and Amanda Lauren-Soo.
A dead rabbit
Thereafter, Khoza says, his client received information to the effect that the resolution was signed under duress.
Khoza followed up on this and established that Lu is the complainant in an intimidation case registered with Midrand SAPS.
Khoza said while he had no personal knowledge of the facts, he had sworn statements, including from Lu (dated 23 March and 26 March); Sun (8 April); and from a Midrand SAPS detective (24 April).
According to Lu’s statement on 23 March, “two days before the purported Base Major resolution” he was at home at Waterfall Estate in Gauteng and received a missed call and then a text saying, “Your delivery is at the gate.”
He received a message from the security gate confirming the delivery.
At the gate, he found a red and white bag bearing his name and cell number.
“When he opened the package, he found a photo of his car and a note reading ‘Mr Stephen Lu enjoy it’.
“When he opened the package, he found blood and a dead rabbit.”
He notified security and made a report to the police.
Khoza said a Midrand SAPS detective viewed security CCTV footage from Waterfall Valley Estate and established that the vehicle that dropped the dead rabbit at Lu’s house was registered to China State Construction.
The next day, Lu received a call from his manager Feng Sun who said “the construction guys” were at his home.
Shortly after, both Sun and eight “construction guys” arrived.
They were told: “If we don’t sign, they will kill us or show us.”
Lu contacted SAPS.
Two policemen arrived but were “overpowered by the eight Chinese”, two of whom were CSC managers.
“We were forced to sign without our consent.”
Lu protested, saying that they had lost the tender and should “leave it at that”, but he was “held hostage”.
Khoza provided a statement from Feng Sun relating to an event on 1 April when Sun was shopping at Carlswald Lifestyle Centre and on returning to his car, noticed a white envelope on his windscreen.
Inside the envelope, he found a single bullet, and asked the police to investigate.
AI’s scrambled gobbledygook
In a replying affidavit, CSC’s Chao Wang accused UUW of trying to keep hidden from public scrutiny an opinion offered by UUW’s attorney Garnet Ngubane that informed the water utility’s decision to award the tender.
The opinion was based on three “reported cases” that were the product of “AI hallucination …scrambled gobbledygook generated by ChatGPT or something similar.”
In a desperate bid to avoid having to answer for this, UUW had launched its application, though, Wang said the water utility’s CEO, Sandile Mkhize, would still have to answer to Parliament how he awarded a tender against the recommendation of UUW’s appeal tribunal.
UUW was silent, he said, on how it got sight of the harassment affidavits.
He said a policeman at Waterfall asked Lu if he was signing under duress.
He said no. “The people at the scene shook hands, and we all left the scene at the same time,” Wang says, quoting policeman Sello Mabula.
Wang quotes an affidavit signed by Feng Sun (dated 27 April) that denies he was ever kidnapped or that he or other Base Major directors were forced to sign a resolution or threatened by CSC.
He said CSC and Base Major had a long-standing, mutually beneficial relationship dating back to 2022, when they started working together in a joint venture on the N3 upgrade near Pietermaritzburg. Wang said this project and another was in a 70/30 split, the majority being held by Base Major.
‘Often slow’ in decisions
Wang said Lu is a 75-year-old Chinese national who has lived in South Africa for 25 years and is a director of Base Major. But, Wang said Lu was “not overly involved in day-to-day management and perhaps because of this, he is often slow in making decisions”.
Wang said he had no knowledge of or role in the “bizarre” rabbit incident and emphatically denied that CSC had anything to do with it.
Lu had briefed Glendinning, but by March 24 had amicably agreed to support the court action against UUW.
Afterwards, Wang said he went to Sun’s house and told him Lu would support the action and abide by court deadlines. They drew up the company resolution and called Lu, and told him they would bring it over for a signature.
“Mr Lu misunderstood Mr Sun’s statement and formed the impression that Mr Sun had been kidnapped. He immediately contacted the SAPS.”
Wang said they drove to Lu’s house at Waterfall Estate, but Lu met them at the gate house and said he preferred to sign the resolution the next day.
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Police at the scene confirmed there was no sign of any attempted kidnapping, intimidation or any other aggressive or unlawful behaviour.
Wang said he knows Sun received a bullet in an envelope, but this was no basis to infer he signed a company resolution under duress.
UUW had put forward “an entirely fabricated story” that did not merit urgent court action to rescind the March agreement between UUW and CSC to suspend the tender subject to court review.
In court this week
Advocate Jean Meiring for CSC said in court this week that the application was a perverse attempt to suppress egregious conduct at UUW, where the utility was playing fast and loose with state money.
Advocate Alan Lamplough for UUW said no parties should be able to file further affidavits until the issue of Abro’s power of attorney was resolved.
Judge Sidwell Mngadi said the effect of the relief UUW sought was substantial — it would set aside the earlier March order.
He said objections around power of attorney could have been handled separately. Lamplough argued that the existing order relied on Abro’s power of attorney, which was in question.
Meiring said there was no dispute over Abro’s power of attorney and UUW had rushed to court to avoid answering questions related to AI-generated legal opinions.
UUW was running roughshod over the rules. Base Major was fully behind CSC’s legal battle.
Lamplough said the issues at stake were “extraordinary and grave”. Lu received a dead rabbit and said he was threatened; this evidence couldn’t be ignored, he said.
Meiring said police affidavits from the Waterfall meeting where the Chinese construction workers met Lu showed it was amicable.
Lamplough disagreed, adding: “Where is Mr Lu now?”
Mngadi reserved judgment. DM
Source: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2025-05-02-dead-rabbit-bullet-bot-kzn-r7bn-water-tender/
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