The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Guyana Power and Light (GPL) recommended in July the voiding of a $16.6M contract for air-conditioners after the original bid price was jacked up by 42.6% and he also proposed changes to tender procedures as a result of this tender and another.
According to documents seen by Stabroek News, CEO Bharrat Dindyal recommended the voiding of a contract with Fix-It Depot for $16.6M after a review of the process following the upping of the original bid price of $11.6M for the air conditioners.
GPL’s tender board on December 27th, 2013 awarded a contract to Fix-It Depot for the supply of cooling units for $11.6M. The bid by Fix-It was valid until January 30th this year. After the bid validity period, Fix-It advised that its bid price had risen to $16.6M, a 42.6% hike. Notification of this came on March 25th, 2014 from the Secretary of the Tender Board who emailed the Procurement and Inventory Manager advising him that the Chairman of the Tender Board had reviewed the matter and agreed to consider the price increase. This was even though Fix-It had been advised of the award of the contract before the expiry of the bid validity period. The Procurement Manager was requested to prepare a memo to the Tender Board on the increased contract sum for consideration and signature.
This email was copied to Dindyal and caused him to advise the Secretary to the Tender Board that the Evaluation Committee and Executive Management never recommended a price of $16.6M and that the Tender Board could not override the recommendation of the evaluation committee. Dindyal then recommended that all the bids be revalidated and the evaluation done afresh.
The Procurement Manager was then requested by the Secretary to the Tender Board to have all bids revalidated. Following this, it was found that Fix-It maintained its 42.6% increase in the bid price, one bidder lowered their price by 2.5% and the others maintained their prices.
Sources say it appeared that the GPL Tender Board placed no weight on the information provided to it by the Procurement Manager that the award notification was given to Fix-It before the expiry of the bid validity period and therefore this was a binding agreement. The sources say the Tender Board also appeared not to have considered that Fix-It had increased its price by 42.6% when no other bidder increased theirs and one even lowered their bid. The sources say that the Tender Board also appeared not to have considered that the increase in the Fix-It price took it to just below the next lowest bid price.
According to a document seen by Stabroek News Dindyal also referred to another Fix-It Depot tender from 2012 where the company was awarded six lots of Transmission and Distribution Hardware and after the bid validity period had expired it hiked the price for two of the lots by US$127,227. At that point the Tender Board had requested that the bid prices from the other suppliers be revalidated for the two lots. It was then found that other bidders retained their prices for both lots but that Fix-It had increased its price for Lot 2 by US$73, 845 (23.47%) and Lot 7 by US$53,379 (36.9%).
The document said that despite the 23.47% increase for Lot 2, Fix-It was still the lowest bidder for Lot 2 but for Lot 7, another bidder, Intertrade offered a price of US$65,159 while Fix-It’s price had risen to US$98,460. The document said the Tender Board however awarded both Lot 2 and 7 to Fix-It for the increased prices.
As a result of his findings, Dindyal concluded that a contract exists between GPL and Fix-It for the supply of sir conditioners to the value of $11.6M and that the award of the contract by the Tender Board for $16.6M should be voided.
Also taking the 2012 contract into account, a lot for which was awarded to Fix-It despite being significantly above the lowest bid, Dindyal said that the Board of GPL should immediately:
“require that all revalidated prices, if there has been any change, be submitted to the Evaluation Committee for them to confirm/reconfirm their recommendation;
“The revalidated quotes should also be shared with Executive Management for their information”.
