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Tender board denies making call to retender NDIA’s steel sheets contract

Guyana

The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) yesterday distanced itself from a decision to retender a contract, as claimed by the Ministry of Agriculture, and its Board will meet next week to discuss the issue.

An NPTAB official said that the Board will want to clarify its role, including that it “does not decide on re-tendering,” as if a contract should be advertised again it lies solely with the procuring entity, which “recommends and justifies” such decisions. “NPTAB merely facilitates the decision of the procuring entity,” the official said.

Chairman of the NPTAB Tarachand Balgobin yesterday told Stabroek News that he is currently on leave and won’t be back at work until next week. He said that the Board is scheduled to meet next Tuesday, when the issue will also be discussed.

He noted that he is not au fait with the matter, which involves the recent retender for the supply of steel sheets for the National Drainage and Irrigation Authority (NDIA).

Following the retender, which received 12 bids, the Ministry of Agriculture issued a press release on Monday in response to a Kaieteur News report that highlighted the retendering.

The Ministry and the NDIA, which announced the withdrawal of the release last night, sought to deny any role in the decision to retender as it claimed that the decision would have to have been made by the NPTAB.  “…by virtue of the Procurement Act 2003, public procurement of goods and services up to a certain limit is done exclusively by the NPTAB, a body that is independent, separate and apart from both the Ministry of Agriculture and the NDIA. The NPTAB has its own employees and the BIDS received through the tendering process are assessed by evaluators drawn from across the public sector by the NPTAB. Indeed, no evaluators are drawn from the sector whose BID is being evaluated. In summary, therefore, the Ministry of Agriculture nor the NDIA plays any role whatsoever in the tendering of contracts,” the release stated.

“The tendering of bids, acceptance of bids and subsequent award of bids are done through the [NPTAB] once it is above a prescribed limit. All these projects named in the articles are above that prescribed limit and therefore falls under the ambit and control of the NPTAB and not the Ministry or the NDIA,” it added.

The release further said that if an aggrieved bidder wishes to know the ground for the rejection of the bid, they can contact the NPTAB for such information.

The Ministry quoted Section 40 of the Procurement Act as it sought to explain that it was merely following instructions. “Section 40 of the Procurement Act 2003 states that “(1) Subject to approval by the National Board, if so specified in the solicitation documents, the appropriate board may reject all tenders at any time prior to the acceptance of a tender. The appropriate board shall upon request, communicate to any supplier or contractor that submitted a tender the grounds for its rejection of all tenders, but is not required to justify those grounds. 2) The appropriate board shall incur no liability, solely by virtue of its invoking subsection (1), towards suppliers or contractors that have submitted tenders. (3) Notice of the rejection of all tenders shall be given promptly to all suppliers or contractors that submitted tenders.”

“Therefore, based on the above, the Ministry of Agriculture nor the NDIA cannot request retendering or rejection of bids. It is only the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) that can do so. The NDIA only provides the engineers estimate which is published along with the tenders for bids. Therefore, it cannot be said that the NDIA (the budget agency) has been turning down competitive bids as is being claimed in the September 19th, 2021 [Kaieteur News] article,” the release added.

 

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