Secret negotiations with unqualified venture!

ZOOMBANGLA DESK : The Coal Power Generation Company Bangladesh Limited (CPGCBL) has allegedly held a secret meeting with a company over the supply of coal to Matarbari Power Plant though its bid was earlier rejected for lacking qualification.

The technical evaluation committee for the project rejected the proposal of the consortium, led by Unique Cement Industries, on 27 May. However, a quarter in CPGCBL is trying to revive the rejected financial proposal for getting illegal benefits, said sources.

The project officials recently held a “special agreement” meeting to allow the consortium to import coal by reviving the cancelled financial proposal, they added.

CPGCBL Managing Director Abul Kalam Azad brushed aside the allegation of favouring any particular consortium.

“There is no such complaint. Tender evaluation is still going on. Nothing more can be said during the assessment period,” Azad told the Daily Sun on Tuesday.

The commercial production of the second unit of the 1200 megawatt (MW) coal-fired plant at Moheshkhali in Cox’s Bazar is scheduled to start in the last week of June this year. Experimental power generation of the second unit started from 24 December last year, and commercial production of the first unit started on 26 December that year.

Four consortiums of local and foreign companies submitted proposals to get the work of supplying coal to the power plant. Three of them were excluded from the tender process on the pretext of “lacking financial strength”, said sources.

The technical committee held a meeting on 27 May, where the officials rejected all the financial proposals.

On 29 May, one of the three consortiums whose proposals were rejected due to “arbitrariness” of the project officials sent a letter to the senior secretary of the Power Division for re-evaluation of the tender. The company has not received any kind of reply yet, said sources.

As per the terms of the tender, there was a condition that the contractor must have experience of importing at least 1.2 million tonnes of coal.

However, to give unfair advantage to a particular firm, that condition was relaxed and experience of importing 1.2 million tonnes of iron, fertiliser, chemical, cement or food grains was included as a qualification, which created an “unequal competition”, said sources.

Among the organisations participating in the tender, one consortium has the experience of supplying coal to power plants by participating in international tenders.

“We were declared ‘technically ineligible’, while our extensive experience and success in coal supply was not considered. We were not informed of anything or given any details. We were not even asked any questions on technical matters. They did not give us any opportunity to explain,” said an official of the eligible consortium, requesting not to be named.

The tender process was made questionable with a quarter’s attempt to give work order to a particular organisation in a biassed manner, despite the fact that the company is not qualified and competitive, and its proposal is not profitable for the state, according to the organisations which participated in the tender.

The project’s technical committee member and CPGCBL Executive Director (Finance) Md Shahid Ullah refused to comment on the allegations regarding the tender process.

“I am not involved in the process. Please, talk with the company secretary,” he told.

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