Two Chinese firms among the five being evaluated for the tender to build the natural gas-fired power plant at Wales have publicly disputed that they were ever blacklisted by the World Bank for procurement violations.
“We, China Machinery Engineering Corporation (“CMEC” for short), recently learnt from the local media KAIETEUR NEWS that three Chinese firms competing to build Guyana’s Natural Gas Fired Power Plant at Wales, West Bank Demerara (WBD) were blacklisted by the World Bank. As one of the three Chinese firms involving in that report, we hereby declare that the reports about CMEC are seriously untrue,” a statement from the company read.
The five companies are Guycan Consortium ($549,088,000 US), China Energy Int’l Gr. Co Ltd. ($466,649,772 US), China Machinery Engineering Inc., ($696,001,776 US), Power China Int’l Group Ltd. ($703,652,256 US) and Lindsayca Inc. & CH4 Guyana Inc. ($898,764,244 US). Those bids are currently being evaluated.
Last week, the Kaieteur News had reported that the World Bank had blacklisted all three Chinese companies bidding for the project and it was that report that triggered the companies to issue public notices distancing themselves from the claim.
The CMEC statement said that “China Machinery Industry Construction Group Inc. (“SINOCONST” for short) and CMEC are two (separate) companies which are established within the territory of the People’s Republic of China with the provisions of the Company Law. The untrue report confused the names of the two companies. We hereby declare that CMEC has never been blacklisted by (the) World Bank,” it added.
And while the company distanced itself from SINOCONST, it defended the company that had been blacklisted by the World Bank back in 2018, saying that it has worked to improve its systems and that the sanctions imposed had been lifted this year.
CMEC said that as far as it was aware, “since SINOCONST was sanctioned by World Bank in 2018, it was constantly improving its compliance system, the company’s compliance management achievements obtained the full affirmation and praise of World Bank. In this July, (the) World Bank Group (WBG) Integrity Compliance Officer determined that SINOCONST and its Sanctioned Affiliates were removed from the WBG’s list of sanctioned entities effective as of July 18, 2022”.
On the heels of CMEC’s disclaimer, China Energy International Group Co. Ltd placed a notice in Saturday’s edition of this newspaper calling the Kaieteur News report “misleading”.
“We China Energy Inter-national Group Co, Ltd…submitted our bid for the Guyana integrated NGL plant and 300MWe CCGT power plant project on September 13, 2022…we hereby declare that CEIG and its parent company China Energy Engineering Group have never been blacklisted by the World Bank,” the notice said.
It added that “all the business activities carried out by our company in Guyana are above board and we shall continue to be guided by the laws and regulations of Guyana, as well as good international engineering practices.”
CEIG also pointed out that it reserves the legal right to pursue false reports.
Government has told all five of the companies bidding that it has the right to accept or reject any proposal or terminate the selection process without incurring any liability.
“Acting in its sole discretion, the Employer reserves the right to accept or reject any Proposal or to reject all Proposals, without thereby incurring any liability to the affected Applicants. The Employer reserves the right not to recommend any Applicant and may terminate the selection process at any time without thereby incurring any liability to any Applicant,” states the Request for Proposals document which each firm signed.
