Home | Business | NEW TWIST IN E196.4M MPAKENI DAM TENDER

NEW TWIST IN E196.4M MPAKENI DAM TENDER

22/03/2024 09:48:00 Nhlanganiso Mkhonta

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MBABANE – The tender for the construction supervision services for Mpakeni Dam and associated works including main access road, that were terminated last year, started afresh and are set to be awarded to another company.

Following another competitive bidding process, in terms of Section 45 of the Public Procurement Act No. 7 of 2011 (the Act), Isiphethu Engineering (Pty) Ltd - Lasicon Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd Joint Venture, emerged as the best evaluated tenderer.

According to the intention to award tender notice published by the Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (ESPPRA), the proposed contract price is E196 404 693.50. Isiphethu Engineering (Pty) Ltd and Lasicon Consulting Engineers, which are South African and Eswatini companies in joint venture, emerged as the best evaluated bidders after scoring 84.74 per cent.

Ventures

They were contesting against two other joint ventures namely; Nippon Koei Co.Ltd - Koei Africa Co.Ltd - ZMCK Consulting Engineers (Pty) Ltd and Knight Piesold Swaziland (Pty) Ltd - Dlamini GIBB (Pty) Ltd Joint Venture. The above joint ventures scored 81.90 and 75.52 per cent respectively. It is worth noting that before being terminated, the tender was awarded to Knight Piesold Swaziland and Dlamini Gibb Consortium.

However, an Italian company, called Studio ING. Pietrangeli S.R.L Consulting Engineers (SP) that was contesting at that time, challenged the awarding of the tender to former. SP even took the matter to court stating that the independent review committee (IRC) was taking too long to decide on the matter.

Nonetheless, the independent review committee convened to review the complaints by SP and made a ruling to the effect that the tender be terminated and eventually on May 9, 2023, Eswatini Water and Agricultural Development Enterprise (EWADE) issued a cancellation of the entire tender.

According to the IRC, the matter has a protracted history particularly between the applicant and the respondent and this is evidenced by the back and forth correspondence culminating to the present application. The IRC indicated that it had anticipated delivering this ruling earlier, but reasons beyond its control owing to the nature of the dispute and volumes of documents which were accessed, have caused the delay. The relevant legislation referred to as the Act in the ruling is the Public Procurement Act of 2011.

Access

In its ruling, the IRC said the decision taken by EWADE to reject SP’s bid in respect of tender Number EWADE/0610, for the supervision services for Mpakeni Dam and associated works, including main access road was reviewed and set aside. “That the decision taken by the EWADE (second impugned decision) to award the tender to the second respondent is hereby reviewed and set aside,” read the IRC ruling.

The ruling came after EWADE in October 2022, issued a tender; EWADE/0610, for construction supervision services for Mpakeni Dam and associated works, including main access road and Applicant expressed its interest by bidding for the tender. At the conclusion of the tender evaluation process, the tender committee recommended that the tender be awarded to SP as it had scored higher than the other bidders.

“Surprisingly, a notice of intention to award was ultimately issued much against the tender evaluation committee,” submitted SP to the IRC. SP argued that EWADE took three decisions that have individually and collectively systematically ensured that the tender was not awarded to them. The IRC was informed that these three decisions were the nucleus of the cause for complaint; particularly in the manner these decisions were taken and conveyed to SP.

SP complained that, on February 15, 2023, the EWADE Board decided to reject its bid in response to the tender.
This decision the IRC referred to as the first impugned decision. On the same day, EWADE corresponded with SP that it intended to award the tender to Knight Piesold Swaziland. This was referred to as the second impugned decision, according to the IRC.

On May 9, 2023, EWADE issued a cancellation of the entire tender, which was referred to as the third decision.
“With the above three impugned decisions, on both the main notice of motion and the amended notice of motion, the committee has noted that the applicant has also sought a termination of the procurement process,” the IRC stated.
SP also prayed that if the tender was not awarded to them, it should at least be terminated and indeed the tender was terminated until now whereby another intention to award was issued on Wednesday afternoon.