Times Of Swaziland: ECLIPSE ‘WIN’ E18M HEALTH CATERING TENDERS ECLIPSE ‘WIN’ E18M HEALTH CATERING TENDERS ================================================================================ BY KWANELE DHLADHLA on 11/07/2019 08:42:00 MBABANE – Eclipse Caterers continues to prove its competitive edge through outsmarting its competitors in the quest to provide essential catering services at health institutions. The company, whose principal offices are based at the Matsapha Industrial Sites, has bagged two tenders for catering services at national referral hospitals and general hospitals around the Kingdom of Eswatini. Evaluation The Director of Health Services Dr. Vusi Magagula mentioned that referral hospitals in the country include Mbabane Government Hospital, TB Hospital and Psychatric Centre. He said government hospitals are ; Pigg’s Peak, Mankayane and Hlatikhulu. Health Centres are; Sithobela, Nhlangano, Dvokolwako and Mkhuzweni. Tender results issued by Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (ESPPRA), which were signed off by Ministry of Health Principal Secretary Dr. Simon Zwane, reflected that Eclipse emerged as the best evaluated in terms of the Public Procurement Act of 2011. In the intention to award, it was announced that for catering services at general hospitals, the awarded tender price was E11.3 million. This was a reduction after evaluation from the E30.7 million which had been submitted by the company at tender opening. For catering services at national referral hospitals, it was stated that the job was worth E6.7 million which was a drop from the E30.7 million which had also been submitted to undertake the task at hand. Effectively, this meant Eclipse’s tenders are worth around E18 million. In the tender race, the company was competing against Fifth Avenue, Caterwell Food, Molly’s House and Geossant, who were all unsuccessful for different reasons the most common being the lack of experience of similar size and complexity. Experience Some of the companies did not provide valid Value Added Tax registration certificates, no referees of past or current performance of similar size and complexity and the lack of qualified dieticians. Other companies also did not have experience outside the Ministry of Health. It should be mentioned that ESPPRA clarified that a period of 10 working days would be allowed for the submission of any application for review in line with the Public Procurement Act of 2011. “The contract award decision does not constitute a contract,” clarified ESPPRA. One of the directors of Eclipse, who preferred anonymity, humbly referred this reporter to the Ministry of health for any queries and comments. It should be mentioned that Eclipse was not new to executing multimillion tasks. The company was also awarded a catering tender along with four others. Zwane previously stated that Eclipse Investments, Time Caterers, Sanqoti Investments and Geossant Investments were granted the tender for supply and delivery of catering services at government hospitals and health centres during the 2017/18 financial year. A summary of the intention to award notice reflected that all four companies would share the tender worth E19 144 748.63. Eclipse Investments stood to pocket the largest share of the pie at E6 408 642.24. The company was closely followed by Time Caterers whose share was fixed at E5 230 356.48. The third tender which emerged victorious was Sanqoti Caterers whose share of the tender was E5 301 419. 52. Geossant Investments, whose price at tender opening was E4 274 991.61, pocketed E2 501 330.39 from the job.