Cabinet has cleared the award of a US$ 7.5M contract to Haier Electrical Appliances Limited of China to provide the first 27,000 netbooks under the One Laptop Per Family ( OLPF) project.
This disclosure was made by Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh during the weekly post-Cabinet media briefing at the Office of the President on Wednesday. According to Dr Singh, the company was one of three finalists of a group of 11. He explained that the bidders were evaluated against a comprehensive set of financial and technical criteria.
Finance Minister Dr Ashni Singh
“The bidders were evaluated and scored against these criteria, they were ranked based on the points. The highest ranked bidder was recommended by Evaluation Committee to the Tender Board… [that decision] was endorsed and referred to Cabinet for its no-objection,” the minister explained in a detailed report of the process, which started in the first week of July.
The minister revealed that Cabinet gave the green light for the award of the G$ 1.5 billion contract when it met on Friday last. According to Dr Singh, the reopened tender process was closed on August 9. The decision was taken to have a fresh tender process after a poor first response.
“On the last occasion, only three bids were received, and when we evaluated, we didn’t feel we had sufficient competition amongst responsive tenders,” the minister stated.
As such, a revised tender document with “minor modifications” was issued after two engagements with prospective bidders. The minister told reporters that this second document was similar to the original tender document, but included the “benefits” of the original tender experience.
He believes that the decision taken to retender has been justified, given the response. “Having made the decision to retender, having consulted with potential participants in the retender process, and having refined the tender document and gone out to bid, considerably wider participation was achieved with the results that we got.”
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