A company, Dredging Atlantic Limited/Westmintser Dredging and Marine (DAW), has accused the Ministry of Transportation, Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), and Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP), of breaching the Public Procurement Act (PPA) 2007, in the award of the contract for rehabilitation works on Escravos Channel.
It was gathered that the contract was for the replacement of navigational aids and minor dredging at the Delta Port, in Warri, worth about $44 million. However, DAW, which claimed it won the bid to execute the job, stated that the contract was awarded to Dredging International Services Limited (DISL), which was one of the lowest ranked bidders at bid opening exercise, a process it said manipulated by the three accused agencies.
A petition signed by the company’s legal adviser, Mr. Liborous Oshoma, the BPP ignored an official complaint made by DAW, and hurriedly concluded the administrative review of the bid process, as it also accused the NPA of manipulating the initial publicly announced tender figures of DISL for the contract bid. “How come the lowest bidder as publicly announced (DAW) had “errors” and or additional fi gures (increase) of N11,709,932.84 ($38,393.23) to arrive at $44,918,741.22 as against $44,880,348.21, while the highest bidder (DISL) had “errors” and or subtracted fiures (a reduction) of $136,456.95 (N41,619,369.75) to arrive at $44,861,596.81, as against $44,998,053.73, from their announced figures,” the company stated in the petition to the parliament.
It also queried the failure of BPP to comply with the provisions of Section 31 (5) of the Public Procurement Act, 2007, by notifying it of any arithmetic corrections, or invite it to either adopt, defend or deny the figures, adding that its technical partner; Nigerian Westminsters Dredging and Marine Ltd, have already worked on the said Escravos channel in the past, and were therefore versatile in the field.
