Controversial tender haunts Kerawalapitiya power plant

The awarding of the 300 MW (LNG) Combined Cycle Kerawalapitiya power plant tender is set to drag on further owing to certain disagreements in opening the financial bid of Samsung JV Korea Group without considering bids of seven other firms.

This decision was taken by the Standard Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee (SCAPC) amidst disagreement of the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC), a senior official of the Power and Renewable Energy Ministry said. Plans to build the power plant were suspended after detecting certain irregularities in the tender procedure to select the company to construct the plant. The LNG power project has been in the planning stage for the last 10 years. The disqualified bidders’ can make their submissions to the Appeal Board against the SCAPC decision, Secretary to the Ministry Dr. Suren Batagoda told the Business Times.

The current controversial tender under criticism of CEB engineers and energy experts is likely to be referred to the Procurement Appeal process, he opined. He disclosed that he has already submitted his observations to the cabinet stating that all eight bids which passed in commercial evaluation should be re-considered in awarding this tender.

The bidding process consisted of three stages; commercial evaluation, technical evaluation and the financial evaluation. Out of eight bidders, seven bidders had been disqualified at the technical evaluation stage as they have failed to fulfill minimum functional specifications. Under this set up only Samsung Korea has qualified to be evaluated for the financial evaluation, he added. However he noted that he has made a recommendation to allow the seven disqualified firms to rectify their technical shortcomings and open all of their financial biddings. While rejecting two bids, TEC has recommended to SCAPC to open the financial bids of all six bidders who have passed the technical evaluation. But SCAPC has selected only Samsung JV of Korea and disqualified five bidders disregarding the TEC recommendations, CEB engineers union alleged.