Work continued yesterday to prepare the Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara site for the specialty hospital, even as word emerged that a Letter of Award had been officially issued to Surendra Engineering on its $18.1 million bid.
“Last week government issued the letter of award, dated 29 August 2012, to an executive of Surendra Engineering informing them that they have won the tender,” a source intimately familiar with the procurement and tendering process of this contract told Stabroek News yesterday. Government had announced last week that it would review the tendering process, following allegations of irregularity.
This publication was also informed that the Surendra executive arrived in Guyana early last week to receive the formal notice and to sign the contract but left the country on Friday last without the signing aspect being completed. It is unclear why this was the case and several efforts to contact the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Health Leslie Cadogan and other officials proved futile.
Surendra Engineering’s management in Guyana is done by Surendra Parikh, nephew of Chief Executive Officer of the company Bridgen Parikh.
A visit to the site yesterday revealed workmen and an excavator on the premises. However, there was no physical evidence of any work being done.
On June 26, the bids of the five Indian companies that had submitted tenders to design, build and equip the specialty hospital were opened. The bidders were: Fedders Lloyd (US$17,679,000 after a 23% discount); Shapoorji Pallonji (US$42,473,600); Jaguar Overseas Limited (US$15,658,000) and the Vydehi Institute of Medical Sciences and Research of India (US$19.5 million); and Surendra Engineering (US$18,180,000).
Following the announcement of the award of the contract to Surendra, Fedders Lloyd charged that the procurement process was improper and said it would raise the issue with the Government of India and India’s Export Import (EXIM) Bank as well as the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) here. EXIM Bank of India is the bank responsible for the line of credit for the contract.
Fedders Lloyd Corporation then asked the Health Ministry to review the award of the contract and asked that it be selected as the contractor as it has “expertise and experience” to fulfil the project to the satisfaction of all. The letter included the company’s assessment of the bidding and evaluation process—which prompted it to protest the decision—and it maintained its claims that there were irregularities in the bidding and evaluation process.
Government then countered the letter accusing Fedders Lloyd of orchestrating a campaign against the work of the NPTAB committee, politicizing the situation and that it had sought to influence the outcome of the process, in its favour, since the opening of the bids.
On September 5, Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon announced that that a review of the process would be undertaken. This was one day after a letter was dispatched to Fedders Lloyd from the Ministry of Health over its concerns in the award of the contract for the specialty hospital, saying it had openly and transparently assessed the “best offer” made to the country. This letter, although delivered on September 6, was dated September 4 causing Fedders Lloyd management to term it “troubling”. “It shows us that this response was pre meditated and there was never an opportunity for a fair review,” Vice President of the company Chandra Soral said as he expressed frustration with the process. He added that the ministry still had not answered why Fedders Lloyd was “disqualified” and they will take up the issue with the Indian authorities.
Soral also questioned where is the review committee mentioned by Luncheon and questioned the “u-turn” by government. “We thought justice would be done to Fedders after reviewing the tender evaluation but it disappointed us,” he said, adding that the company will raise the issue with the Indian authorities “about all these irregularities in the whole evaluation process.” An official protest letter to Exim Bank of Indian will be dispatched sometime this week a company official informed this newspaper.
