Financial offer of expressway’s bid winner opened; losing bidder’s claim loses ground
Total cost of Dhaka Elevated Expressway (DEE) as per financial offer of the winning bidder is Tk 8,703 crore, and not Tk 13,000 crore as the losing bidder had earlier alleged.
Construction cost per kilometre of the 26-kilomentre elevated expressway will be around $30 million which is $5million more than what local experts earlier estimated.
The DEE tender evaluation committee headed by Prof Jamilur Reza Chowdhury opened the proposal yesterday.
As per the proposal of the winning bidder — Ital-Thai — it will pay the government 37.5 percent corporate tax on its income, 15 percent value added tax on daily toll and 11 percent customs duty on imported materials.
The company will hand over the charge of the expressway to the government after 25 years of concession period.
Out of four short-listed bidders, Ital-Thai Development Company and Sikder-KCC JV (Bangladesh-South Korea) participated in final bidding.
Having been rejected in technical evaluation, Sikder alleged that its financial offer was Tk 9,000 crore but the government accepted that of Ital-Thai out of favouritism although its offer was Tk 13,000 crore.
But opening the proposal, the evaluation committee found that Ital-Thai’s offer was actually less than that of Sikder.
“At last, it has been proved that the allegation had no basis,” said Chowdhury, former professor of civil engineering of Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (Buet) and former vice-chancellor of Brac University.
Sikder at a press conference on Tuesday alleged that the communications minister had influenced the evaluation process in favour of Ital-Thai, as a company owned by the minister is its local agent.
Prof Md Shamsul Hoque, another member of the evaluation committee, said, “The allegation was unfounded, there was no influence whatsoever.”
Ron Haque Sikder, managing director of Sikder-KCC JV, told The Daily Star that they met the financial requirements and had sufficient work experience.
Communications minister Syed Abul Hossain in a letter to the finance minister yesterday said the allegations made by Sikder-KCC before opening the financial offer was baseless, and holding the press conference was intended to create misconception among people.
Abul Hossain told The Daily Star that if the bidder had had any grievances, it could have sought remedy from the Central Procurement Technical Unit, a government organisation responsible for carrying out the public procurement reform project.
Mosharraf Hossain Bhuiyan, secretary to Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA), said further negotiations will take place to extract some more benefits from the bidder. The next meeting is on 18 December.
The government aims to sign the agreement by first week of January. It will pay one-third of the cost from PPP (public private partnerships) fund.
Saudi fund for DEE
The Royal Embassy of Saudi Arabia in a press release said the Governing Board of Saudi Fund for Development has sanctioned 200 million Saudi Riyals (app. $53 million) to finance the project.
