Trading Cor-poration of Pakistan (TCP) on Wednesday sought explanation from members of the bid evaluation committee on their failure to evaluate urea import bids on merit. Source told Business Recorder on Thursday that the TCP management took strict notice of mismanagement in the recent urea import tender and urged members of the evaluation committee to identify leakages in the international urea import deal.
The TCP management reportedly blamed the bid evaluation committee for the mismanagement and delay in the award of urea tender, contending that the committee did not even clarify the actual status of the lowest bidder. They insisted that it was actually a conditional bid. Sources said that letters seeking explanation were served on the convenor and two members of the committee, asking them to clarify matters in three days. Letters, it is learnt, were issued by the General Manager, Admin and Human Resource, Basheer Ahmed to the convenor of the bid evaluation committee, Sehto Anwar Jan, and members, Muhammad Ramzan and Mujahid Hussain Zaidi.
"Explanation letters were issued on June 13 this year, but mentions June 6 as the date on which letters were issued," the sources said. The letters asked the committee members when the bid was conditional, why they had not mentioned the status of the lowest bidder at the time of the evaluation of the bids. Sources said that confusion was created in last urea tender issued by TCP for the import of 50,000 tons of urea.
On June 5 this year, TCP had opened the urea import tender and got offers from 15 international bidders and suppliers, who quoted prices ranging between $335 and $371 per ton Cost and Freight (C&F). M/s Toepfer International was the lowest bidder, which offered to supply 50,000 tons of urea at a price of $335 per ton through Gwadar port and the firm also deposited a bid bond of $570,000 with the corporation. The second lowest bid of $337.17 per ton was submitted by M/s Trammo for the supply of same quantity via three ports, including Gwadar, Karachi and Bin Qasim.
However, the bid evaluation committee did not declared the first lowest bidder non-responsive or declared it a conditional bid, and forwarded details of all bids to the tender award committee for the final decision. Latter, the tender award committee declared the first lowest bid non-responsive and awarded the urea import contract to the second lowest bidder namely M/s Trammo, which quoted $2.17 higher rate than the first lowest bidder.
This created an embarrassing situation for the TCP. Later, the ministry of commerce acted on reports appearing in a section of the press and asked TCP to award the contract to the first lowest M/s Toepfer International, which later regretted to supply urea, as the contract award letter was issued after the expiry of the bid. According to sources, the convenor and members of the bid evaluation committee have submitted their responses. They contended that there were some flaws in the tender documents because of which this situation was created during the tender process. They also mentioned that they received letters on June 14, while letters were actually dated June 6.
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