THE Minister of Transport, Senator Idris Umar, at the weekend, declared that he has neither begged any aggrieved dredging firms to sheath swords for being denied the contract of dredging the Calabar channel, nor directed any ministry officials to do so.Senator Umar, who spoke against the backdrop of alleged failure to successfully pacify some aggrieved firms made this known in a telephone chat with the Nigerian Tribune.'I have not begged any firm' he emphasised, nothing that even now, no contract had so far been awarded.The minister confirmed that he was however aware that a dredging firm had protested to the Bureau of Public Procurement, suggesting that it was being denied fair opportunity in the bid for the multi-million dollar dredging contract; and that he had actually waded into it, even though his moves were still inconclusive.Senator Umar who assumed duty as Transport Minister only about two months ago also explained that the procurement procedure was a lot tasking, encompassing an entire process which begins from the initiation of the process of effecting a procurement, and running up to the award of the contract, and which in this case, cuts across the Parastatals Tender Board, Ministerial Tender Board, and Bureau of Public Procurement; before terminating at the Federal Executive Council FEC level; and indicated that in his opinion, efforts were yet to establish if any public officer had actively participated in any way to make him culpable on the issue of having special or pecuniary interest in any of the firms participating in the current exercise.Meanwhile, the controversy over who wins the contract award may have continued unabated, as some of the six companies which bided for the Calabar channel dredging job were said to have begun to take pre-emptive measures to undo their competitors in a bid to ensure success. The six companies which were initially pre-qualified, according to investigations were the Dredging and Reclamation Jan De Nul DRJDN; West Minster, Dredging International, China Harbour Engineering; a joint venture Nigerian company, the Lagos Channel Management LCM, an outfit where the Nigerian Ports Authority NPA has a 60 percent controlling share; and the Van Oord.Of the six companies that were pre-qualified, Jan De Nul was said to have sent in the lowest bid price of 79, 083,454 Euros, followed by China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) which quoted 90, 910,731.09 Euros; Dredging International with 101, 829, 300.00 Euros was third on the list while LCM was fourth with 120, 331,199.47 Euros.A ministry source however told the Nigerian Tribune that the ministry was not interested in recommending the contract to the lowest bidder, more so, as it was more concerned with issues of who was likely to exceed, in terms of performance, based on past performance.The Ministry of Transport, it was learnt, adopted this gesture so as to avoid a situation where a 'cherry- picking' of the lowest bidder might fail to meet government's aspirations for the channel, especially, as two previous attempts towards dredging the Calabar channel in the past had failed, despite draining away over N11 billion tax payers' money.'That a company submitted the lowest bid for the project and therefore should have the most competitive bid is not the issue. Government is more concerned with ensuring excellent performance, not rhetoric' disclosed a Transport Ministry senior official, who said his name should however not be mentioned since the minister had already commented on the issue.'There is no truth in the notion that since NPA has an equitable interest in Messrs Lagos Channel Management Company Limited, one of the bidders, therefore the Ministry should share such view. But it should also not be a plausible point of argument that the LCM should be excluded or disqualified, simply because it a joint venture company.
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