Tepui admitted not having requisite experience but ended up with $865m pump station project
Guyana
In the wake of its investigation of the awarding of a pump station project to Tepui Inc which did not have the requisite experience, the PPC has recommended that evaluators stick rigidly with the evaluation criteria for tenders.
In its summary of findings issued on Tuesday, six months after a complaint by MP David Patterson, the Public Procurement Commission (PPC) recommended that “Evaluators must strictly abide with the express terms of the Evaluation Criteria for the tender being evaluated”. The PPC pointed out that the previous commission had said the Evaluation Committee should not consider evaluation criteria not outlined in the tender documents.
The PPC, chaired by attorney Pauline Chase, said that an Evaluation Committee “does not possess the authority, discretion or jurisdiction to vary or (waive) Evaluation Criteria unless expressly provided for in the tender documents”.
It also recommended that the Evaluation Committee should be “very meticulous” in its review of bids to ensure that they are evaluated in accordance with the Evaluation Criteria so that the Procurement Act is not breached.
“The Evaluation Report should give a true and complete account of the evaluation process. Accordingly, it must clearly set out all pertinent matters, including but not limited to, date of completion of the evaluation, analysis of the tenders, whether arithmetic checks were done in accordance with S. 39(4)(b) of the Procurement Act, Cap. 73:05 and whether clarification was sought from any of the bidders and if so the particulars thereof”, the PPC said.
The upshot of the summary of findings is that though Tepui did not comply with the evaluation criteria, a contract has already been signed and the PPC does not have any authority to rescind, recall or alter the contract in any way.
The PPC’s summary of findings is replete with examples of the Evaluation Committee of the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) bending over backwards to justify not strictly applying the evaluation criteria to Tepui’s bid. One of the key requirements was for Tepui to have had prior experience with a project similar to a pump station. It did not have this and readily admitted it.
However, when questioned by the PPC, the NPTAB said that the work done by Tepui in the less than a year it was in existence was similar to what was required for a pump station.
The PPC noted that Evaluation Criteria No. 8, required the awarded contractor to: “Demonstrate specific construction experience by providing copies of contracts with previous clients that show the bidder has completed one (1) project of similar nature within the past five (5) years. (Similar projects shall include pump stations, sluices and drainage structures)” [emphasis re Bidding Documents].
The PPC said that the record before it reflects that Tepui submitted two contracts under this criterion heading: a contract between it and Hadi’s World Inc. dated March 27th, 2023, for the construction of a concrete wharf at Providence, and a contract between it and the Central Housing and Planning Authority dated February 24th, 2023, for the upgrading of roads in Block 3, Great Diamond.
Further, the List of Current Projects submitted by Tepui under Evaluation Criteria No. 14, gave the status of the aforesaid projects at the time of the bid submission (June 2023) as 30% and 20% completed, respectively.
The commission noting that the works for which the contracts were submitted by Tepui were neither for a “pump station, sluice and or drainage structure” as specified in the Evaluation Criteria nor were any, by Tepui’s own admission, completed, also as required by the Evaluation Criteria, wrote to the NPTAB by on February 6th, 2024 and requested clarification as to the basis on which the Evaluation Committee deemed Tepui as responsive to the said criterion No. 8.
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