Tender Board clarifies Stabroek News’ Report

Dear Editor,

The National Procurement and Tender Administration Board (NPTAB) has noted the article titled “Mohamed’s Enterprise bid $210m above engineer’s estimate but still got contract for fire station HQ” dated July 7^th, 2024, in the Stabroek News and wishes to provide clarifications:

1. The award of the Contract for the Fire station Headquarters was done for the amount of $614,521,774 which is $34 million below the engineer’s estimate.
2. The Read-out price at the time of the bid opening as announced from the bid page, which shows $858,788,980 in figures, a possible typographic error, reflected in the minutes and stated in the Stabroek News article instead of $614,521,774 which was stated in words.
3. The documents were then given to the three-person independent evaluating team to conduct the evaluation. All bids were checked for administrative compliances and all Bill of quantities were tabulated to avoid any arithmetic errors. At this stage it was discovered that Mohamed’s Enterprise bid was $614,521,774 as correctly stated in their detailed Bill of quantity in their original bid document which was then used in the final evaluation process.

The evaluation team recommended Mohamed’s Enterprise as the lowest evaluated bid, meeting all the criteria and experience required, at the price of $614,521,774. A contract award was done for this amount and a contract was subsequently entered. The Ministry of Home Affairs last year, included some additional works (outside of the original scope) to the existing contract, taking the amount to $635,527,894, all of which was done in accordance with the procurement regulations.

NPTAB wishes to thank Stabroek News for the opportunity to provide clarity on this matter.

Yours truly,

NPTAB