NEWS - NAMIBIA
| 2013-08-07Neckartal sluice opens again
Tileni Mongudhi
THE Tender Board of Namibia has started re-evaluating the Neckartal Dam tender to comply with an order handed down by the High Court last month.
Sources close to the Tender Board told The Namibian that a sub-committee was put in place last Friday to carry out the re-evaluation process.
According to the sources, the Tender Board had waited for four weeks before it could start working on the contested tender to allow those who wanted to appeal against the High Court ruling to do so before the grace period lapsed on Thursday.
Sources also said the process could be concluded by Friday and an announcement could also be made then.
Tender Board spokesperson, Leonie du Toit, issued a media statement on Monday stating that after the High Court judgement they had “met to consider legal issues emanating from the order and are busy finalising the tender as per the court judgement”. Du Toit further said the public will be informed as the matter progresses.
This will be the third time in three years that the Neckartal Dam tender has landed before the tender board after the first decision was made in late 2011.
The latest developments came after a High Court judgement on 4 July set aside the tender which had been awarded
to Italian outfit, Salini SpA, in March.
The Tender Board went with the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry’s recommendation that Salini, with its bid of N$2,8 billion, should be awarded the tender and start work on the project although the company had come second to Vinci-Orascom Joint Venture in the overall evaluation.
Knight Piésold Consulting’s expert consultants had recommended that the contract be awarded to Vinci-Orascom Joint Venture instead of Salini SpA but the Agriculture ministry motivated Salini’s top mark for its technical bid which showed that the company has the best technical know-how and experienced staff in dam construction.
Vinci-Orascom then challenged the decision in court but pulled out at the eleventh hour but the third shortlisted company, Stafanutti Stocks, continued with the legal challenge.
The court then referred the matter back to the Tender Board with an order that it should again consider the award. The court also found that the Tender Board was not fully informed about the evaluation process though and was specifically not informed that Knight Piésold Consulting’s expert consultants had recommended that the contract be awarded to Vinci-Orascom Joint Venture and not to Salini SpA, the court noted in its judgement.
The board was also not informed that the joint evaluation committee made up of officials from the ministry and engineers from Knight Piésold Consulting proposed that clarification should be sought from the tenderers about key personnel who would be involved in the project, the court also noted.
“The failure on the part of the ministry to have informed the board of this fact is also in our view, material and amounts to a material non-disclosure,” the court stated. “The board was deprived of the opportunity to consider whether it should or should not request clarification by reason of the fact that the expert consultants had urged that this should be done.”
With the tender evaluation committee, charged to act jointly but was split between the views of the ministry officials from the Neckartal Steering Committee and those of the expert consultants, only the view of the ministry officials found its way to the Tender Board, the court recounted.
It stated: “The opposing views of the expert consultants as to who should be recommended and why, were not disclosed to the Tender Board. This in our view, also amounts to a material non-disclosure.”
Sources close to the Tender Board told The Namibian that a sub-committee was put in place last Friday to carry out the re-evaluation process.
According to the sources, the Tender Board had waited for four weeks before it could start working on the contested tender to allow those who wanted to appeal against the High Court ruling to do so before the grace period lapsed on Thursday.
Sources also said the process could be concluded by Friday and an announcement could also be made then.
Tender Board spokesperson, Leonie du Toit, issued a media statement on Monday stating that after the High Court judgement they had “met to consider legal issues emanating from the order and are busy finalising the tender as per the court judgement”. Du Toit further said the public will be informed as the matter progresses.
This will be the third time in three years that the Neckartal Dam tender has landed before the tender board after the first decision was made in late 2011.
The latest developments came after a High Court judgement on 4 July set aside the tender which had been awarded
to Italian outfit, Salini SpA, in March.
The Tender Board went with the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry’s recommendation that Salini, with its bid of N$2,8 billion, should be awarded the tender and start work on the project although the company had come second to Vinci-Orascom Joint Venture in the overall evaluation.
Knight Piésold Consulting’s expert consultants had recommended that the contract be awarded to Vinci-Orascom Joint Venture instead of Salini SpA but the Agriculture ministry motivated Salini’s top mark for its technical bid which showed that the company has the best technical know-how and experienced staff in dam construction.
Vinci-Orascom then challenged the decision in court but pulled out at the eleventh hour but the third shortlisted company, Stafanutti Stocks, continued with the legal challenge.
The court then referred the matter back to the Tender Board with an order that it should again consider the award. The court also found that the Tender Board was not fully informed about the evaluation process though and was specifically not informed that Knight Piésold Consulting’s expert consultants had recommended that the contract be awarded to Vinci-Orascom Joint Venture and not to Salini SpA, the court noted in its judgement.
The board was also not informed that the joint evaluation committee made up of officials from the ministry and engineers from Knight Piésold Consulting proposed that clarification should be sought from the tenderers about key personnel who would be involved in the project, the court also noted.
“The failure on the part of the ministry to have informed the board of this fact is also in our view, material and amounts to a material non-disclosure,” the court stated. “The board was deprived of the opportunity to consider whether it should or should not request clarification by reason of the fact that the expert consultants had urged that this should be done.”
With the tender evaluation committee, charged to act jointly but was split between the views of the ministry officials from the Neckartal Steering Committee and those of the expert consultants, only the view of the ministry officials found its way to the Tender Board, the court recounted.
It stated: “The opposing views of the expert consultants as to who should be recommended and why, were not disclosed to the Tender Board. This in our view, also amounts to a material non-disclosure.”
