October 17, 2016 By Ibrahim Tarawallie
A recent report by Audit Service Sierra Leone has revealed that the most responsive bidder in the National Competitive Bidding process for the procurement of lubricants in the Ministry of Defense was not awarded the contract, as procurement process was abandoned.
The report on the procurement activities in selected public sector entities, which spanned from January to October 2015, indicated that the Ministry of Defense rather chose to procure a smaller quantity of lubricants from another supplier for Le325, 100,000 without any compliance to the National Public Procurement Authority’s regulations.
Also, the report highlighted irregularities with regards the construction of guest house and the rehabilitation of the Hill Cut Military residence, adding that the bid criterion for the guest house contract was inconsistently applied to bidders.
According to the report, the lowest competitive bidder; Yorma Enterprises was disqualified for failure to submit the Freetown City Council’s Certificate, while the contract was awarded to Samgus Investment, who also failed to submit the same certificate.
It stated that the Yorma Enterprises’ bid price was Le2,882,086,375 lower than that of Samgus by Le122,110,617 and that ‘contingencies’ of Le272,866,820 were included in the contract price.
With regards the residence rehabilitation, the report stated that an award letter dated 30th September, 2015 was issued to Franko General Merchandise for the work but the contract bid security expired on 17th November, 2015 before the contract was signed and in force.
“Included in the total contract sums for the rehabilitation of Hill Cut military residence and the construction of a guest house were contingencies of Le94,114,630 and Le272,866,820 respectively.
“The contracts were fixed price and the procurement documents contained no clause defining which events might have given rise to a ‘contingency’. It would appear that the ‘contingencies’ were included merely to increase the government’s cost in delivering such projects,” the report stated.
The Ministry’s response on the issues pursuant to Section 64(3) of the Government Budgeting and Accountability Act, 2005 was not received within the thirty (30) days permitted by law and consequently was too late for consideration in finalizing the management letter.