NDIA exposes Ramjattan’s ignorance

The National Drainage and Irrigation Authority today responded to the AFC’s Khemraj Ramjattan on the Award of Contracts for the four million US dollar Drainage Pumps. Ramjattan is calling for a probe in contract awarded to an Indian Company. In their response the NDIA explained that through the Indian Line of Credit, 14 pumping units are to be acquired. And prior to the awarding of a contract, bid documents were sent through a public procurement process to 28 Indian Companies. After evaluation of the respondent companies by the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board, Surendra Engineering was awarded the contract since they were the lowest bidder. This contract was awarded in May of last year. The NDIA noted that the entire process of executing this contract was approved by the Export/Import Bank of India from the time of short listing of bidders, awarding of the contract and the execution of the project. The authority wishes to make explicitly clear that the project is ongoing and to date, six of the mobile pumps have been fabricated and is scheduled for factory testing in October before shipment to Guyana. The NDIA also wish to indicate that there has been some technical issues with regard to the supplier pumps design submittal which had to be resolved in keeping with the contract document. In addition it was noted that the contract is being executed in accordance with the contract document which provides for penalties to be applied with regards to contract shortfall and according to the drainage and irrigation authority, penalties will be applied fully once required. With regards to Kirloskar mentioned in the article, at the bid evaluation stage, it was revealed that the suggested company “Kirloshkar” provided a bid to supply four 4 fixed pumps at the cost of four million US dollars as compared to a bid of fourteen 14 pumps for four million from Surendra Engineering