Gopaul and Co trails in 2nd place
http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Gopaul_and_Co_trails_in_2nd_place-122786228.htmlLosing bidder objects to award of $40m NP contract to company owned by PM's friends
By Camini Marajh Head Investigative Desk
Story Created: May 28, 2011 at 11:53 PM ECT
Story Updated: May 28, 2011 at 11:53 PM ECT
On two of the four criteria used by the management of the State-owned National Petroleum Marketing Company (NP) to assess the eligibility of the bids submitted in a $40 million cab-over-engine-design tractor deal, CDS Transport Ltd was way ahead of its closest rival and the winning bidder, Gopaul and Co Ltd.
Documents obtained by the Sunday Express reveal NP's favoured bidder for the multimillion-dollar fuel distribution service contract, Gopaul and Co, trailed the top-ranked CDS group by 21 points on two of the three criteria that points were awarded in the summary prequalification evaluation score sheet.
Five of the 14 companies that submitted bids—including CDS—scored overall higher marks than Gopaul and Co, and one, D&D Auto World Ltd, which received an overall score of 52 points, the same as Gopaul and Co, was issued a fail grade by the five-member bid evaluation team which comprised Chester Beeput, Ronald Fraser, Alan Tang Wing, Kevin Ragbir and Lynette Hamblyn. The bid evaluation report was reviewed and signed off by acting chief executive officer of NP Rajkapoor Ramlochan.
The Prime Minister's personal friendship with the owners of Gopaul and Co has come under scrutiny, following CDS-raised objections to the award of a $40 million contract to the Macoya-based food distribution, trucking and garbage disposal company. CDS filed a pre-action protocol letter claiming bias against the State-owned petroleum company on May 12, four days after the Neil Gosine NP board of directors decided to favour Gopaul and Co.
The Opposition People's National Movement (PNM) has referred the matter of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar's stay at the Tunapuna home of Ralph and Maureen Gopaul after the May 24 general election to the Integrity Commission (IC) for a determination on whether her stay at the home of her old friends after she was elected leader of the Government amounted to a gift and whether she was required by the Integrity in Public Life legislation to have disclosed her stay at the private residence.
On Thursday, Attorney General Anand Ramlogan, armed with a fistful of opinions obtained from four legal luminaries, made clear the Prime Minister's use of the Gopaul's sprawling Tunapuna residence in the post-election period did not consti tute a gift under the Integrity in Public Life Act. He also made public the views of the four silk that Integrity Commission chairman Eric St Cyr "displayed bias" when he said the Prime Minister should have stayed at a hotel.
In his bid to pour cold water on the CDS-levelled accusations of bias in the award of the $40 million fuel haulage tractor contract to the Prime Minister's friends, Attorney General Ramlogan, at Thursday's post-Cabinet news conference, said there were no grounds "legally and factually" for suspicion in the award of the contract and, further, there was "absolutely no grounds for this complaint" which he dismissed as "completely baseless".
This, after he had disbanded the four-member probe team of State-employed technocrats, appointed a week earlier by Energy Minister Carolyn Seepersad-Bachan to investigate the CDS complaint of bid-manipulation.
Yesterday, Ramlogan told the Sunday Express he had no choice in the matter, given the line minister's decision to recuse herself from the process following the discovery of a previously unknown connection between her brother and the firm of CDS.
Ramlogan insisted it would have been "improper" for the committee, appointed by the line minister, to continue to probe the allegation since their findings could be subject to a legal challenge on the grounds that they would "arguably be affected for the same reason as the person who disqualified himself".
As to the expanded "investigator" role the legal adviser to the Cabinet has now taken on, Ramlogan said there was a "fundamental misunderstanding of what I am about to do". He explained CDS has challenged the award of the NP contract and has threatened litigation, and it was his job to determine whether the complaint has any merit in it. This, again, after he had expressed publicly that the bid-manipulation complaint made by CDS was "completely baseless".
Documents obtained by the Sunday Express, however, tell a different story. One which raises questions about how Gopaul and Co emerged with the lion's share of the contract, the process used to evaluate the bids and the apparent failure of the bid evaluation team to conduct the requisite on-site inspection of the operations of the top-ranked firms.
By NP's own admission, the bid evaluation process was discredited by the fact that 13 of the 14 bidders failed to comply with the ITB (Invitation to Bid Document) requirement for the submission of audited financial statements. A copy of the evaluation report, under the heading "prequalification evaluation" says this: "Audit and finance personnel recommended that no evaluation be done on unaudited financial statements as the information may not be accurate and cannot be used to make an assessment of the company's financial status."
The NP evaluation report noted: "Strict adherence to the pre-qualification process meant that 13 bidders would have been disqualified. The evaluation team decided to proceed to evaluate bidders who passed the other three criteria in the pre-qualification evaluation (experience, resources, legal information). At the com- mercial evaluation stage, an examination of the bidders would then be done and requests for audited financial statements made to the best prospects."
Documents show CDS Transport was the top-ranked company on the commercial evaluation,
with Gopaul and Co in second place and Paramount Transport and Trading in third position. The two shortlisted firms were issued an April 7, 2011 deadline to provide audited financial statements. CDS submitted one audited statement, but it was deemed invalid because it failed to carry the required two directors' signatures as required by the company. Gopaul failed to submit any financial information.
The evaluation report said: "In strict terms, no award can be made as each bidder failed at the prequalification stage at financial evaluation. However, other factors need to be considered in the best interest of the company."
The factors listed talked about the benefits of having two providers of leased tractors, namely the competitive element and the enhanced reliability of access to resources of both companies in the event that one is unable to meet their contractual obligations. The recommended options put forward by the bid evaluation team were:
• award the contract to either CDS Transport Ltd or Gopaul and Co Ltd
• award separate contracts to CDS Transport Ltd and Gopaul and Co Ltd for the supply of ten new tractors each, for a seven-year lease period. To achieve this, management required approval to negotiate with both companies for acceptance of a partial award.
The board tenders committee, however, citing safety issues with CDS, opted on the award of an uneven split in the seven-year contract for the 20 fuel tractors: 15 new tractors for the second-ranked bidder and five for the top-ranked company.
It sought to justify the award of the larger contract to Gopaul and Co on safety concerns relating to CDS's aged fleet, which is three years past its seven-year life expectancy. But as insiders report, the safety issues with the CDS-owned equipment is of NP's own making. The State company had awarded a $16 million buy-new-tractor contract to Neal and Massy Motors in 2009 but failed to finalise the buy-tractor deal. With the change of government in 2010, NP abandoned the buy option, in favour of the more expensive lease option.
No explanation has been put forward for the costly about-turn. Insiders suggest it may not be unrelated to the political sub-plots and tension between the two main coalition partners, the United National Congress (UNC) and the Congress of the People (COP). The Sunday Express was told there was a lot of political tussling for most of the State board appointments, including NP. Sources have identified Gosine, an insurance executive with Comprehensive Insurance Brokers, as Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar's personal pick to chair the NP board. Seepersad-Bachan, a member of the COP, was reported to have been backing Uttam Maharaj's candidacy for the post.
Dismissed CEO Richard Callender told the Sunday Express yesterday the decision to pursue the lease option was a political decision and not the desired course of action initiated by his management. Callender, who was fired in April over a credit facility extended to a service station dealer, claimed in early January of this year, he was instructed by Gosine to register Gopaul and Co as a contractor to NP.
"Neil Gosine said to me, 'Richard, this is the Prime Minister's people, make sure we get it right the first time.' He said he complied with the request because Gopaul and Co met NP's stringest registration requirements. Gosine did not return messages left on his cell phone.
Well done again Ms Camini