Three elevated expressways draw good response from local, foreign bidders
Wednesday, 13 January 2010
Munima Sultana
Prospective national and international bidders have shown keen interest in participating in the prequalification bidding of the country's first ever PPP project to construct three elevated expressways in Dhaka, requesting the government to provide articulate data for helping them prepare acceptable proposals.
They said the prequalification (PQ) notice of the Dhaka Elevated Expressway Public-Private-Partnership project did not provide requisite data on constructing 32-km road to meet the requirement of the potential companies.
Representatives from different national, regional and international bidding companies on Tuesday met the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) at a pre-bid meeting and placed their request both verbally and in written form.
BBA secretary-in charge Md Zahid Hossain chaired the meeting where Project Director Abdul Qader answered to the queries of the bidders.
They also requested the government to extend the time schedule including deadline for the PQ submission by at least two months from January 20 to give them sufficient time to prepare the documents.
"The project being of a new kind, the companies need time to understand its various sides," said one of them.
He said the government should give enough time to the potential bidders to work out the project details properly for reducing scope of wastage of money and energy,.
The bidders including companies from the United States, Italy, Canada, Thailand, India and South Korea argued that the interested companies need time to do their own home-work as the PQ document lacks in feasibility study and important specification like proportion of government/private share, tax facilities, period of concession, investment guarantee, standard to judge qualification etc.
"PPP concept is also not clearly stated in the PQ document," said Azizul Islam of Nippon Trading Corporation who represented Glusters Inc of USA.
The participants said they need time to do their own exercise including conduct own feasibility study and form joint venture and requested the government to provide information regarding financial model, PPP guideline and necessary data.
The BBA secretary-in charge assured the potential bidders of meeting their demands including extension of time and said the government has kept many important issues open for the bidders to submit in the PQ considering the first of its kind nature.
"We will consider respective proposals and try to assess what and how those issues should be taken into consideration in the project," said Mr Zahid.
The PD said the government has its own pre-feasibility study on the elevated expressways and is now working on modeling the project under the PPP. He said the proposals from the PQ bidders might help the government to finalise many decisions.
The companies participated in the pre-bid meeting include Dopco from South Korea, Gammon House of Mumbai, Italian-Thai Development Public Company, KPMG-Singapore, Hyundai of Korea and R and R Holding.
Prospective national and international bidders have shown keen interest in participating in the prequalification bidding of the country's first ever PPP project to construct three elevated expressways in Dhaka, requesting the government to provide articulate data for helping them prepare acceptable proposals.
They said the prequalification (PQ) notice of the Dhaka Elevated Expressway Public-Private-Partnership project did not provide requisite data on constructing 32-km road to meet the requirement of the potential companies.
Representatives from different national, regional and international bidding companies on Tuesday met the Bangladesh Bridge Authority (BBA) at a pre-bid meeting and placed their request both verbally and in written form.
BBA secretary-in charge Md Zahid Hossain chaired the meeting where Project Director Abdul Qader answered to the queries of the bidders.
They also requested the government to extend the time schedule including deadline for the PQ submission by at least two months from January 20 to give them sufficient time to prepare the documents.
"The project being of a new kind, the companies need time to understand its various sides," said one of them.
He said the government should give enough time to the potential bidders to work out the project details properly for reducing scope of wastage of money and energy,.
The bidders including companies from the United States, Italy, Canada, Thailand, India and South Korea argued that the interested companies need time to do their own home-work as the PQ document lacks in feasibility study and important specification like proportion of government/private share, tax facilities, period of concession, investment guarantee, standard to judge qualification etc.
"PPP concept is also not clearly stated in the PQ document," said Azizul Islam of Nippon Trading Corporation who represented Glusters Inc of USA.
The participants said they need time to do their own exercise including conduct own feasibility study and form joint venture and requested the government to provide information regarding financial model, PPP guideline and necessary data.
The BBA secretary-in charge assured the potential bidders of meeting their demands including extension of time and said the government has kept many important issues open for the bidders to submit in the PQ considering the first of its kind nature.
"We will consider respective proposals and try to assess what and how those issues should be taken into consideration in the project," said Mr Zahid.
The PD said the government has its own pre-feasibility study on the elevated expressways and is now working on modeling the project under the PPP. He said the proposals from the PQ bidders might help the government to finalise many decisions.
The companies participated in the pre-bid meeting include Dopco from South Korea, Gammon House of Mumbai, Italian-Thai Development Public Company, KPMG-Singapore, Hyundai of Korea and R and R Holding.