The inhabitants of two villages of Straseni district risk losing a project to build an aqueduct to the value of 8 million lei. The tender contest to choose the contractor was held for four times. Every time, a number of business entities challenged the contest results, complaining that they were disqualified because they proposed lower prices than the value of the project. For its part, the procurement group says the law does not allow the bidders to radically decrease the sums indicated by designers, IPN reports, quoting an investigation of the Journalistic Investigations Center.
The villages Ghelauza and Saca have together 1,300 residents. The wells are a rarity there, while the existing wells do not have enough water, according to the mayor Nicoleta Malai. So, the local administration decided to propose a project to build an aqueduct. A sum of 8.2 million lei was allocated from the Ecological Fund for the purpose. The first tranche of 2 million lei was disbursed immediately after the project was accepted. Since then, the contest commission has tried to choose a contractor, but all in vain. Nicoleta Malai said that if a contractor is not selected by November, they will lose the project because the contract with the Ecological Fund was signed for a year and the works should have been initiated already.
The last tender contest took place at the beginning of August and involved seven bidders. The commission finally chose one company, arguing that this submitted the most suitable bid – almost 7 million lei with VAT included. The company was to start the works immediately. Under the contract, the water pipeline is to be built during three months, but three of the bidders disputed the contest result, saying they were unreasonably disqualified. The three companies challenged the contest results in court already as the Public Procurement Agency no longer examines challenges filed by business entities following the coming into force of the new law on government procurement.
Olesea Stamate, who heads the Association for Efficient and Responsible Governance (AGER), said the most serious problem of those raised by this case is the lack of an authority responsible for dealing with such complaints. “The Agency for Dispute Resolution hasn’t been yet created because the amendments to the new law on government procurement are to be passed in the second reading in the autumn session of Parliament. It would be right if the Public Procurement Agency dealt with disputes until the new authority is created. Thus, the business entities have to go to court, where, as we know, the examination of a case can last long,” she stated, being quoted by the authors of the investigation.
