Yesterday the Democratic Alliance (DA) put out a statement which suggested that the company Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd had repeatedly breached its contract with the Department of Public Works. The Democratic Alliance has subsequently established that it was in fact the Department of Public Works who breached its contract with Ruwacon (Ptd) Ltd, and not vice versa, to the extent that Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd has successfully claimed against the Department for breach of contract in court due to non-payment of amounts due to Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd. Any suggestion that Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd as opposed to the Department of Public Works was liable for poor management or bad business practice is unfounded and wrong and the inference that Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd have a poor record in respect of completing projects, was unfounded. In turn, because the Department of Public Works breached the contract, there can be no doubt that their continued use of Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd has nothing to do with that company's connections to the ANC, as the DA intimated. Quite clearly, Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd was delivering a service, and delivering that service to a high standard, but the Department of Public Works failed to uphold its side of the contract by failing to make payments on due dates. As a consequence of these facts, the Democratic Alliance unequivocally retracts its statement in respect of Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd and apologises for the harmful publicity the inaccurate remarks have caused. The said statement that I released as a representative of the DA, also contained allegations or, at least, insinuations, that Ruwacon (Pty) Ltd owed the award of tenders to nepotism and/or obtained the tenders without being entitled thereto. These allegations are retracted by the DA without reservation and it is recorded that neither myself nor the DA has any facts to support same.