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Something is not right with this bidding for a GWI project

Aug 04, 2017 Letters

Dear Editor,
Please permit us to share our concerns regarding a growing trend of public/competitive tendering of construction projects in Guyana and more specifically on a current project which was retendered by GWI, namely, “Rehabilitation and Expansion of Water Treatment Facility at Shelterbelt, Georgetown. It is starting to become painfully obvious that several Government entities are subverting the competitive nature of tendering, either knowingly or unknowingly due to the inclusion of specific requirements or decisions, which are imposed at the bidding stage. Some requirements make very little sense and seemingly imposed to restrict the competitive nature of the bidding process. The Procurement Act 2003 allows for a competitive bidding process to ensure that Government gets value for money; which brings me to our project in question.
The “Rehabilitation and Expansion of Water Treatment Facility at Shelterbelt, Georgetown is an IDB funded design and build project, which had to be retendered for one reason or the other. Having had to retender the project, timelines for the IDB financing agreement obviously would be under pressure. As such, what was required was for GWI to take every precaution to ensure that decision making on the tender procedure is practical and logical. At the pre-bid meeting held on June 27, 2017 nine (9) potential bidders were expressing interest, some of whom were international bidders, seemingly competent in the design and construction of these treatment plants.
Several bidders requested an extension to the closing date of the bid, to allow proper bid preparation, considering that the period from the period of the pre-bid meeting to the tender opening was less than one month. Preparation of such a tender warrants scoping the physical requirements adequately, conducting a physical assessment of the existing facility, identifying a rehabilitation strategy, designing the ancillary infrastructure and finally preparing detailed drawings, reports and estimates for tendering.
This seemed impractical for one month. With several potential bidders requesting an extension of time for which no response was given by GWI, it was obvious that the industry and the people that know how it has to be done, was adamant that the risks involved in the project, required additional time for proper design and bid preparation. GWI was non-committal to an extension even though, the majority of the potential bidders were certain that the time period for bid preparation was not practical.
Furthermore, contrary to procurement regulations, GWI failed to issue the minutes of the pre-bid meeting to potential bidders. It should be noted that contact was made with the IDB regarding the possibility of an extension, for which they indicated that GWI would have to write to the agency requesting the same. This was obviously not done and there was no time extension for the bid submission.
On July 25, 2017, the bids were opened, with only one bid received. A single bid meant that the competitive nature of the bidding process was subverted. Is this a favoured contractor and is the bid technically compliant? We ask the public to follow the developments of this project carefully and we look forward to an articulated, sensible response from GWI.
Concerned citizen

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