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Download PDF The advisory council committee on purchase yesterday cancelled controversial tenders for seven small power projects and asked the Power Development Board (PDB) to invite fresh tenders.
It also cancelled a tender for filling up 22 land allotments under Rajuk’s third phase Uttara residential area development. Excessive rate quoted for the job was the reason for cancellation of the tender.
The committee has asked the Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) to float fresh for the job. It however approved the work to fill up 25 other land allotments.
After a meeting of the committee yesterday, its Chairman and Finance Adviser Mirza Azizul Islam told the press that the tenders for power schemes were cancelled because the contractors were deviating from the original terms.
“Though the jobs had already been awarded, the government did not sign any agreement with the contractors. If they want to change the terms and conditions for setting up the plants then we’ll have to consider changing the rate for purchase of power,” he observed.
“And that’s why we have asked the PDB to go for fresh tenders,” Islam noted.
Meeting sources said the tenders for small power schemes were cancelled because of ’serious irregularities’ in the process that is being scrutinised also by the joint forces.
Taking advantage of the impending power crisis, the small power contractors were grossly deviating from original tenders. Of the seven schemes that amount to 260 megawatts in capacity, three were awarded to the Hosaf group, and one each to Ornate, GBB, Summit and United groups.
Hosaf group, a favourite of the immediate past alliance government, was seeking a major change in terms for its 50-megawatt Nowapara (Sikalbaha) power plant. As per the original tender, it was supposed to set up a barge-mount plant there. But later it wanted to build a land-based power plant.
Ornate Services, owned by a close relative of an immediate past former minister, sought similar favour for its 50-megawatt Fenchuganj plant.
A barge-mount plant is movable while a land-based plant demands land allocation and land lease agreement (LLA). This means this small power plant is going to block precious power plant site and prevent installation of bigger projects.
Hosaf also sought a five-year rental contract instead of three years’, keeping the power tariff the same. It sought undue benefits for both its Feni and Barabkundu projects (each of 20-megawatt capacity).
Hosaf and GBB also asked for huge additional time to commission the Barabkundu and Bogra power projects.
The past government’s initiative for small power schemes started amid a serious controversy where up to 45 small power schemes were about to be offered to ministers, lawmakers and individuals close to the Hawa Bhaban.
But the then government had to shelve the initiative under pressure from the World Bank and resorted to a smaller scale scheme.
“This whole exercise killed precious time for the nation and by this time the load-shedding has reached such a level that we cannot address the problem now through some small power schemes,” said a PDB official.
The advisory committee on purchase yesterday approved procurement of two lakh metric tons of diesel from Singapore through open tender. The purchase will be cheaper than that from Kuwait.
The committee also decided to buy one lakh metric ton wheat at the rate of $259.37 per ton from the international market. The wheat will be supplied to stabilise the country’s food market situation.
The committee approved a Tk 31-crore budget for assigning three non-government organisations (NGOs) to provide health care services under the second urban primary health care project. In Sylhet, the job has been awarded to Shimantik while in Rajshahi and Bogra, it was awarded to Khulna Mukti Sheba.
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