Three groups are vying to complete the Amaila Falls road and transmission line clearing project and bids opened today showed a more than $1B difference between the highest and lowest submissions.
Government reopened the tender for the project after ending a controversial US$15.4M contract with contractor Makeshwar ‘Fip’ Motilall’s Synergy Holdings, citing missed deadlines. Motilall has since sued the government alleging a breach of contract and the government has counter-sued him.
The engineer’s estimate for the seventh part of the road project was pegged at $979,491,800 and the huge disparity among the bids submitted was noted today when the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) opened the bids at its office, in the Ministry of Finance Building, on Main Street.
The project covers works to be done from the Kuribrong River Bank to the Amaila Falls Project in Region Seven.
In a joint venture, three companies, B&J Civil works, Ivor Allen Construction Services and Dynamic Engineering Company Ltd of Guyana merged to submit a bid for the project, for which it estimated a cost of $2,059,413,700. The China Railway First Group Company Ltd submitted a $2,435,077,722.91 bid, while Hassan N Pasha submitted a bid pegged at $837,367,013.
Asked about possible reasons for the disparity, a government engineer told Stabroek News that it could be considerations about the terrain.
The roadway is key to China Railway First Group building the 165 megawatt Amaila Falls hydropower station. Key players in the project are the Guyana government, Guyana Power and Light Company, Sithe Global and China Development Bank.
Despite concerns about the cost of the more than US$700 million project and the rate of return on investments, government has said that in the long run the Amaila hydropower station would be a good deal for the country because of the rising price of oil internationally.
Government has also made the project one of the linchpins of its the Low Carbon Development Strategy (LCDS).
