The Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) has invited fresh offers from interested parties to operate the Inland Container Depot (ICD) at Kamalapur in the capital as it cancelled the previous tender amid allegations of favouring a vested interest group, officials have said.
Some stakeholders, especially the off dock operators, had raised the allegation that their participation in the tender has been restricted by inserting a condition in the eligibility criteria to favour a particular quarter, they said.
After cancelling the tender in line with a decision of a CPA board meeting and an approval by the shipping ministry, the port authority on Tuesday floated a fresh tender to appoint a contractor for container and cargo handling by using the contractor's own equipment at the lone rail ICD in Dhaka for a period of five years.
The contractor will be responsible for discharging and loading of container trains arriving in the depot. Also, the operations related to appraisement, full container load or FCL (stripping and box) delivery, placement of container for export cargo stuffing, lift on/lift off related to all kinds of the ICD activities.
Sources said the leaders of the Bangladesh Inland Container Depot Association (BICDA) met with the CPA chairman Rear Admiral Mohammad Sohail late last month and demanded reviewing the qualification criteria of the tender to facilitate participation of the off dock operators in the bid.
They raised a question about the section (11) of the experience criteria that says: Bidders shall have a minimum number of years of general experience in contracting industries in the public sector as prime contractor/sub contractor/ management contractor as specified in TDS.
Also, they shall have a minimum number of years of specific experience (to comply with this requirement service contracts cited should be at least 70 per cent complete) as prime contractor in providing non-consulting service of a nature, complexity and methods/technology similar to the proposed non-consulting service in at least a number of contracts over the period as specified in the TDS.
BICDA Chairman Nurul Qayyum Khan said the tender qualification criteria requires 70 per cent working experience in any government project instead of having specific ICD-related expertise.
He said the work experience in any government project and qualification for ICD project is not the same, which actually created barriers for its members to participate in the bid.
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