The government yesterday accused the rejected specialty hospital bidder, Fedders Lloyd Corporation of orchestrating a campaign against the work of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) committee that awarded the contract to Surendra Engineering.
In a three-page statement, the administration said recent reports in sections of the local media were characterised by “misinformation” and “an orchestrated effort” by the Indian firm to besmirch the work of the Evaluation Committee set up by the NPTAB to select the contractor to design, build and equip the hospital. It also accused the company of seeking to influence the outcome of the process since the opening of the bids and of “politicisising” the situation after the rejection of its bid.
Surendra Engineering was awarded a US$18.1 million contract for the project, for which Fedders Lloyd put in a bid of US$17.69 million (after a 23% discount from its initial bid of US$22.96 million).
Following the announcement of the award of the contract to Surendra, Fedders Lloyd charged that the procurement process was improper and said it will raise the issue this week with the government of India and India’s Export Import (EXIM) Bank as well as the NPTAB here. EXIM Bank of India is the bank responsible for the line of credit for the contract. Fedders Lloyd lawyer Khemraj Ramjattan has said that government should “retract and rescind” the contract awarded to Surendra Engineering, saying that its bid was inferior to that of his client’s, in finance and technical capacity.
In a statement that came three days after Minister of Health Dr Bheri Ramsaran evaded questions from reporters about whether procurement rules had been broken, government remained silent yesterday on the precise criteria used to select Surendra—the contractor responsible for the GuySuCo’s Enmore Packaging Plant. And although it did not specifically state the reasons for the rejection of the Fedders Lloyd bid, it reiterated that each bid must be “responsive” to “Administrative, Technical Capacity and Financial” criteria—in order of priority—before advancing to the next level of the evaluation. “The evaluators have not found that Fedders-Lloyd was substantially responsive to the set criteria,” it said, reminding that awards are not made to the “lowest priced bid” unless that bid also passes the acid test of responsiveness to the other components of the evaluation criteria.
The government added that the discount or double pricing by Fedders Lloyd was not by itself the reason for the rejection. “The Evaluation Committee did not reject the Fedders-Lloyd bid on the grounds of the discount per se and or that they were guilty of “double pricing” the bid,” it said, while accusing the company of “gross misinformation and deliberate machinations” to cast aspersions on the integrity of the public procurement process. “What Fedders-Lloyd did not “tell” the evaluators in their bid submission is where they intend to take the discount from… There is no guess work. The process cannot assess “intention” only what is contained in the bid presentation,” it added.
The government noted that 34 companies registered in India were “long listed” for the contract, 15 companies were shortlisted, six companies expressed interest in the project by purchasing bid documents and five companies submitted bids. All bidders except one met all the requirements at the time of the opening of the bids, it added, although it did not identify the bidder.
‘Bid security’
Addressing Fedders-Lloyd’s contention that Surendra Engineering’s bid security was issued by a commercial bank in India rather than through a bank in Guyana in accordance with the bid submission guidelines, government said that it was made clear at a pre-bid meeting that the bond must be issued by a bank in India. “What baffles reason however, is that Fedders-Lloyd was present at the pre-bid meeting and participated fully in the discussions and decisions taken at that meeting. The facts of the matter is that it was made abundantly clear and the records of that meeting recorded accurately the decision that the bid bond will be from a bank in India,” it said.
The administration added that standard procedures in these matters will inform the virtual complainants that “general conditions” or any other “instructions to bidders” are superseded by “specific conditions” and or pre-bid meetings. “In this particular case, the issue of the bid bond was raised officially at the pre-bid meeting and the answer was provided at that meeting,” according to government.
Government said that the minutes of the pre-bid meeting constituted “a most pertinent component of the instructions to tenderers’ and the issues raised and answers contained in the minutes of the pre-bid meeting are binding on the tenderers’, notwithstanding, whatever else is contained in the “instructions to bidders” or the “general conditions” of the bid.”
In response, Ramjattan called government’s position “outrageous” and an attempt to trivialise the issue by arguing that oral proceedings at a meeting—recorded in minutes made by the government and without any opportunity for correction or adoption—amounted to a decision that overrides written rules. “As to the argument that such a decision supersedes, there is no way you can just change what is written in the bid document in that manner. Such a meeting in which decisions are taken cannot override the exactness of written rules. What this shows is that government was changing the goal post for its favoured bidder who apparently could not get a local bank to execute an enforceable bid bond,” he told Stabroek News last night.
However, according to the Procurement Act, if the procuring entity convenes a pre-bid meeting of suppliers or contractors, it shall prepare minutes of that meeting and they are to be provided promptly so as to enable those suppliers or contractors to take the minutes into account in preparing their tenders. “All modifications of tender conditions made by the procuring entity whether on its own initiative, as a result of clarification requested by the tenders, or provided during a pre-tender meeting, shall be issued in the form of all suppliers or contractors to which the procuring entity provided the tender documents, so as to enable those suppliers or contractors to take the minutes into account in preparing their tenders,” Section 33 of the Act says. It adds that all modifications of tender conditions made during a pre-tender meeting shall be issued in the form of amendments to the tender documents, which shall be provided to all prospective bidders who purchased the tender documents and such addendum shall be binding upon all tenders.
‘Competence’
Meanwhile, in response to concerns about Surendra Engineering’s performance in building the Enmore sugar packaging plant, government said that there is no mechanism for the evaluators to assess the work of Surendra Engineering on the GuySuCo facility. “That is tantamount to assessing the competence or incompetence of Fedders-Lloyd being an air conditioning sales agent or being an over the counter drugs salesman in order to determine if they are competent to design, build and equip a specialty hospital for Guyana,” it said, dubbing the question a “sleight of hand” by Fedders Lloyd to mislead and misdirect the public.
But Ramjattan disagreed. “Why shouldn’t the evaluative committee look at Surendra’s track record and all the problems with GuySuCo and the water pumps?” he questioned, while saying that the response speaks to the “unacceptable and imprudent assessment” by that evaluative committee. “This surely proves that Surendra does not satisfy the so-called administrative requirements, which are nowhere in the bid documents. Only cost and technical expertise are here. But here again the goal posts are changed,” he added.
Ramjattan also rejected the government’s criticism over Fedders Lloyd’s proposed discount being non-specific. “That is so puerile. The company will do exactly the thing it bid for at the discount it gave on this project. When one gets a discount at a store when purchasing a shirt say, one does not get a sleeve-less or a shirt without buttons,” he argued.
Although government did not name Ramjattan in its statement, it accused Surendra of politicising the situation and referred to its “political spokesman” and “political mouthpiece.”
Ramjattan said he was a lawyer representing an aggrieved bidder. “I wish to rebut allegations of special interests. The company wanted good advice and from what they heard they contacted me. I too wanted to hear what happened. If there is interest here, it is pecuniary interests for some in senior government positions to ensure a Surendra awarded contract,” he said.
On Monday, main opposition APNU joined the call for an investigation into the awarding of a contract to Surendra Engineering. “We are calling for a probe into the award of the contract to see if it was in accordance of correct procurement procedures, if it was transparent and if there were any manipulations,” said APNU’s Chairman David Granger, who said APNU’s two legal representatives will be making the request for information on the procurement process and compliance of the firms that bid, so that they may be internally analysed.
