Kampala- The proposed construction of Shs130b Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) National Referral Hospital has hit a snag over claims of collusion between Ministry of Defence officials and the contractor being fronted for the project.
This came after the project price was scaled up from Shs113b to over Shs130b without a logical explanation. Consequently, Inspector General of Government Irene Mulyagoja has been petitioned to launch an inquiry into the deal for the 250-bed hospital, and probe the Shs17 billion costs escalation.
According to the petition, a copy of which was seen by this newspaper, it is alleged there was collusion between procurement officials involved in the evaluation process and M/s Seyani & Brothers Ltd, whose Shs130 final bid, was passed as the best.
According to the petition, “some members of the evaluation committee smuggled into the bid four pages (pages on Bill No.5 Mechanical installations) from the bidder.
This action alone raised the price by Shs800m”. The petitioners allege backhand dealings between the evaluation team and the winning contractor.
“The bill item and the summary sheet are different, the difference brought about by the page they replaced to create an impression that the summary sheet was [mis-written],” the dossier reads in part.
According to the petition, the evaluators also smuggled into the bid documents, the Shs7.9b bid price, that was raised from Shs2.4b without explanation. Among the other irregularities the dossier points out include use of wrong methods to correct arithmetic errors, a factor that inflated the final bid, to Shs130 billion.
IGG Justice Mulyagonja yesterday said she was yet to personally look at the petition, which was received by the office on January 12. “But I will check for it,” she said.
Defence ministry Permanent Secretary Rosette Byengoma could not be reached by press time, but Seyani officials denied they have been awarded the contract. “We have not yet been listed as the best bidder, because the evaluation is ongoing,” said Mr Mahesh Seyani, one of the company directors.
Ms Byengoma, while replying to a protest by one of the aggrieved bidders, M/s China National Aero-technology International Engineering Corporation on November 13, 2015, conceded that wrong arithmetic computations had been used, and promised that the matter would be re-evaluated.
“First, a re-submission of the matter to the contracts committee for review of the award decision, and secondly, re-evaluation of all the nine officially received bids by an independent evaluation team,” she wrote.
The procurement for the deal was initiated early last year with the ministry inviting potential bidders. Queries, however, emerged around this stage after evaluation requirements were tightened and seemingly only one firm seemed eligible. After “numerous complaints” the evaluation process was repeated with less prohibitive requirements.
Within the ministry, disagreements emerged among staff on why such an open international bidding process could be made so restrictive. Those who questioned the earlier process were kicked out when the process was repeated.
According to the dossier, it was after these “disagreements” could not be resolved that more money was injected into the evaluation process by hurriedly creating arithmetic error of over 20 billion to raise the bid price so as to cause “harmonization” between the majority and minority evaluation”. The dossier alleged that the internal contract management team for this project has since been reshuffled in order to replace it with individuals who support the contested bidding process.
The executive director of Public Procurement Disposal of Public Assets Authority, the government body which oversees such procurements, Ms Cornelia Sabiiti, indicated to this newspaper yesterday they had tried handling the complaint but the “bidder appealed to the procurement tribunal, a quasi-judicial body that handles procurement issues.
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