Gov’t flays critics of Specialty Hospital contract award

Cabinet Secretary Dr Roger Luncheon has registered government’s consternation at what he termed the persistent, unsubstantiated allegations, conjecture and outright misrepresentation in sections of the media on the contract awarded for the construction of the Specialty Hospital.
Dr Luncheon pointed out that while it is accepted that Cabinet was not in possession of every iota of information regarding the bid, whatever facts made available was both necessary and sufficient for the contract to be granted. “The administration has issued a press statement which provides eloquent evidence and the basis for the decision by Cabinet to grant its no-objection,” Dr Luncheon said.
The Cabinet secretary added that the evidence provided by government indeed highlights the weaknesses and flaws in the arguments proposed by persons making objections, commenting on the issues, and criticising government’s intentions.
On Tuesday, the administration slammed contracting firm Fedders Lloyd for “feeding misleading information to the public” regarding the award of a US$ 18 million contract to Surendra Engineering to build the Specialty Hospital.
In a statement, government referred to an orchestrated effort by Fedders Lloyd to besmirch the work of the Evaluation Committee set up by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board to assess the lowest evaluated bidder from among those who tendered for the design, build and equip contract.
According to the government, 34 companies registered in India were long-listed for the contract; 15 companies were shortlisted; six companies expressed interest in the project by purchasing bid documents; and five companies submitted bids.
Government said records of the opening of the bids were subject to the usual public process, noting that all bidders except one met all the requirements at the time of the opening of the bids.
According to the government, Fedders Lloyd, through company officials, has, since the opening of the bids, been seeking to prejudice the outcome of the tender.
“It would be recalled that immediately following the opening of the bid and even while the tenders were referred to the confidential process of evaluation, Fedders Lloyd provided interviews with the Kaieteur News ascertaining that they were the frontrunners in the process merely because they provided a discounted price of 23 per cent on their original bid price.”
Government said much has been made by Fedders Lloyd concerning this discount. “The fact would show that the Evaluation Committee did not reject the Fedders Lloyd bid on the grounds of the discount per se and or that they were guilty of “double pricing” the bid. This is an affront by Fedders Lloyd who is guilty of gross misinformation and deliberate machinations to cast aspersions on the integrity of the transparency of the public procurement process.”
Government asserted that it appointed technically competent engineers and other qualified personnel to assess the bid using common evaluation criteria. According to government, Fedders Lloyd and their political spokesman are also seeking to make the point that Fedders Lloyd’s bid is superior in two components of the bid – technical expertise and financial. It added that notwithstanding, it is imperative to indicate categorically that there are three levels of bid responsiveness before the Evaluation Committee can ascertain the lowest responsive bidder, administrative, technical capacity, and financial.
Finally, government contended that there is no mechanism for the evaluators to assess the work of Surendra Engineering on the GuySuCo facility. On Wednesday, the Alliance For Change (AFC) added its voice to the list of critics claiming that government’s decision to award the contract to Surendra Engineering was not above board.