allAfrica.com: Botswana: A P300 Million Mess Unfolds At FCC (Page 1 of 2)

The Francistown City Council (FCC) has bungled a P300 million infrastructure project after the High Court dismissed its decision to award the project to Group Consult, an engineering firm.

The Gerald Estate infrastructure project remains in limbo as Group Consult, the supervising engineers were dismissed following the invalidation of the allocation by the High Court. The court order came as a result of the FCC initiating that the matter be settled by consent instead of the case going further.

On April 24, High Court Justice Maruping Dibotelo dismissed the allocation of the project, calling for a fresh tender instead. This follows a court case in which one of the tendering companies, Bothakga Burrow Botswana, was questioning the process through which the engineering group was given the job.

Last year a tender was called by the FCC for the design and supervision of the massive project, which would see the suburb of Gerald Estate equipped with social infrastructure. The project entailed roads networks, drainage systems and preparations for other amenities such as power and telephone lines. The design, valued at P1.952, 551.70 and supervision of the project worth around P9 million was awarded to Group Consult. The company would design the project, pass it to a contractor which it would supervise. The construction phase was worth P300 million.

A number of engineering firms, among them Bothakga tendered alongside Group Consult. Bothakga's application was deemed non-compliant after it was considered to have excluded key personnel such as an electrical engineer, a land surveyor and a surveying technician. The FCC further indicated that Burrow had not submitted complete financial proposals. Following the awarding of the design stage to Group Consult, applications for the construction supervision stage were opened and subsequently awarded to Group Consult.

Bothakga Burrow argued that it was automatically and therefore unfairly disqualified from the tender process for the supervision tender. "(Bothakga Burrow) was wrongfully and unlawfully disqualified," argued Arthur Siwawa in his affidavit.

Siwawa further argued that the terms of the reference did not call for any electrical reticulation to be undertaken nor did it require tenderers to "include inputs associated with electrical engineering works and consequently there was no obligation to tenderers to include an electrical engineer in their professional teams".

Bothakga Burrow argues that it had sought to get this matter clarified in a letter to the City Clerk, where it sought to know whether "the design, specifications, documentations and costing for sleeves for BPC and BTC reticulation would be done by the respective regulating authorities and the consultant would only be required to liaise with BPC and BTC and obtain the design proposal and incorporate the BTC civil works in the schedule of the (project)".

In an email copied to all the companies that had tendered, a certain Stephen Chavula of the FCC replied that "the design of the sleeves will be done by the utility companies themselves" adding " this also applies to consultancy services for street lighting, i.e. the designs will be done separately". In conclusion Chavula said, "the construction supervision of electrical services will be done under a separate arrangement, i.e. not under the project"

However Chavula in his affidavit argued that from studying the project details Bothakga Burrow ought to have known that the project would need the input of an electrical engineer. "The terms of reference inform the tenderers of the tasks to be performed and it is then the tenderers' duty to determine the personnel necessary for such tasks. The works..cannot be properly carried out without the input of an electrical engineer. Failure by a tenderer, such as (Bothakga Burrow) to include a key person in the form of an electrical engineer shows that the tenderer did not understand the scope of the works".

Siwawa argued that it would have been unreasonable to expect his team to have made that consideration especially after what Chavula had explicitly stated in his emailed reply to Siwawa's request for clarification.

The other point of contention was the issue of Group Consult's submission which seemed to have excluded academic qualifications of key people in its team. Chavula maintained that although the documents available had none of the records, he "vividly recalled considering the academic qualifications of these persons". "The resident engineer is such a key person that (Group Consult)'s bid could not have been passed without proof of his qualifications and consent".

He said, "I humbly state that I am completely at a loss as to why proof of the academic qualification is not on record".

However, Siwawa dismissed Chavula's claims in his affidavit, arguing that no member of the evaluating team had submitted information confirming that the academic qualifications had been lost or misplaced as Chavula had claimed.

"Bearing in mind that there were two tenders submitted by each tenderer - the design component and the construction supervision component - it is inconceivable that the academic qualifications submitted in both tenders have been lost or misplaced," said Siwawa in his affidavit.

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