Purchase panel for evaluation of tender

Dhaka: The committee of advisers’ council on purchase Tuesday sent back a power division proposal to award a Tk 574 crore contract to a Chinese company for setting up 150MW Shikalbaha power plant for re-evaluation of tender process.
The committee in a meeting held at the cabinet division also approved import of 50,000 tonnes of rice from a Singaporean company at a rate of Tk 22.31 per kilogram at Chittagong port. The price of per kg rice at warehouse will be Tk 23.16.
The committee, headed by finance adviser Mirza Azizul Islam, asked the Power Development Board to include power experts in the tender evaluation committee for 150MW power plant as the committee felt the necessity for re-evaluation of the tender.
The finance adviser told reporters that as per the power division documents, four companies submitted tenders for the turnkey-contract for setting up the power plant with government funds and the tender evaluation committee found bids of two companies technically responsive.
The Power Division proposed that the contract would be awarded to the Chinese Sino Hydropower Corporation as it became the lowest bidder with an offer of Tk 574 crore.
‘After going through all the documents, we feel that there is a need for re-evaluation of all the submitted bids by co-opting power experts in the TEC,’ Mirza Aziz told reporters after the meeting.
The PDB completed the tender procedure by June before the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, headed by chief adviser Fakhruddin Ahmed, approved the Tk 777 crore development proposal of the power project at a meeting on October 8.
When Mirza Aziz was asked whether it was against the norms to complete tender procedure of any project before getting the ECNEC nod, he said tender procedure could be completed before ECNEC approval in two cases.
‘The tender procedure can
be completed in advance because of urgency and to know about the project cost,’ he explained.
Regarding to the price of rice that the Singapore-based company will supply, the finance adviser said that the price was economic.
The committee approved a proposal put forward by local government division to award contract to a company for road development at four upazilas in Brahmanbaria under a project funded by International Development Agency and the government.
Although the same company became the lowest bidder for road development at five upazilas in Comilla under the same IDA-GOB funded project, the committee didn’t approve another proposal to award the contract as company’s financial capability is less than the cost of the two projects, said Mirza Aziz.