Schabir Shaik, brother of the government's chief acquisitions director, Chippy Shaik, has been dealt another blow after one of his companies failed in a court bid to stop a R365-million government contract being awarded to another company.

Shaik was arrested last year for alleged possession of classified government documents relating to the much-publicised arms deal.

In the High Court in Pretoria this week, Judge Ebernard Bertelsmann refused to stop the contract, awarded by the department of transport to parastatal information technology arivia.kom and its joint venture partners last year.

Procon Fischer, a merger between Shaik's Durban-based company Procon and Fischer Consulting of Pretoria, initially took the department to court in December last year, when an interim interdict was granted to stop Transport Minister Dullah Omar from proceeding with the newly awarded tender.

The contract is to transform the department's information technology systems over five years. The project is expected to create jobs for about 410 people.

Tasima Consortium, led by arivia.kom, clinched the National Traffic Information System (NaTIS) and National Traffic Register (NTR) deal, which is the largest contract so far won by the recently merged state-owned enterprises.

Fischer Consulting had developed the current NaTIS system from 1989 and claimed the department did not have a "good reason" for awarding the tender to Tasima Consortium.

Procon Fischer Director Gert van Eeden argued in papers filed in court that the system his company developed enabled the department to collect more than R2-billion a year in revenue.

But Sipho Khumalo, department of transport deputy director-general, said after the awarding of the tender was announced that the current NaTIS system was "very limiting" and new technology was essential.

Judge Bertelsmann said the initial temporary interdict in December "had a detrimental effect". "This is a matter of grave public importance and a lot of money is involved. A public need has not been met because of the interdict." He dismissed the application to extend the interdict with costs.