Businessman Yasser Alphather Shangadi has apportioned blame on Covid-related lockdown regulations for his company’s failure to complete the construction of the Nkurenkuru Vocational Training Centre.
The contractor is also using the victim card, saying his contract was terminated with a year still remaining, while other contractors running behind schedule have had their contracts extended. He said at certain times, he could not access certain roads to the construction site in Nkurenkuru because of road works and the weight of his cargo.
The information is hidden in a trove of documents seen by New Era, wherein the local contractor is complaining of unfair treatment in the face of an unshaken Namibia Training Authority (NTA) who are the initiators of the project.
Shangadi, through his company Neu Olulya CC, was awarded a N$35.6 million tender to construct phase B of the Nkurenkuru VTC.
Documents further reveal that the project was supposed to be completed within two years.
The tender was awarded in July 2020, with a revised completion date of 2 October 2022.
However, 385 of 748 days later, Shangadi’s contract was terminated for non-performance.
At the time of the contract’s termination, only 13% of the total work was completed for which close to N$5 million was paid through the NTA.
The contract’s principal agent was Bernard Mutua Architects, now rebranded as Bernard Mutua Scriba Architects.
He feels hard done by.
“My contract was terminated a year before the completion date. But there are other contractors who are receiving preferential treatment while their contracts are a year behind. So why are others being favoured?” Shangadi told New Era recently.
At the height of the pandemic, economic activities came to a standstill, except for essential services.
Documents seen by this paper show Neu Olulya requested at least six extensions on their contract. Only one extension was granted, he said.
Reasons for extending ranged from Covid-19 restrictions, late or non-issuance of drawings and specifications from the architects.
The drawings delayed the project’s progress by 175 days.
“It is also undeniable that these [Covid-19] measures, which we consider force majeure [natural or unexpected causes] affected the progress on site which we strongly believe entitle us to an extension of the intended completion time,” Shangadi charged.
Diametrically opposed to this version is the CPBN, which says it terminated Shangadi’s contract purely due to gross incompetence as far as the execution of the project in Kavango West is concerned.
“The bidder [Shangadi] does not challenge the issues of non-performance. In fact, he acknowledged that there is poor performance and that he has on several occasions been given an opportunity to come up with a catch-up plan.
But on all those times that he came up with a catch up plan, none of the catch-up plans was able to catch up with the other catch-plan,” said CPBN chairperson, Amon Ngavetene at a media briefing in Windhoek yesterday.
According to him, they gave Shangadi ample time and courtesy to salvage his agreement.
It would appear, however, that there was little the board could do on the competence part.
“Even if you look at the legal challenge at court today, it’s not about that he has been unfairly treated and that he has not been given fair opportunities to complete the work. The challenge is the arbitration process. He is saying that arbitration was done before the mediation. Therefore, he is of the view that the contract was terminated in an unlawful manner,” Ngavetene expounded.
This, according to Ngavetene, is disingenuous on the part of Shangadi, who after subjecting himself and agreeing to an arbitration process, only decided to take the legal route after the arbitrators ruled against him.
While Shangadi continues with his legal battle to retain the contract, CPBN has awarded that contract to Betonstein Construction to complete it.
Blacklist
But not only did the procurement board terminate the contract, it also put the company on blacklist.
This is to their disappointment, as they wanted a five-year ban.
“The Central Procurement Board of Namibia wishes to send out a stern warning to bidders that the organisation will not tolerate poor performance or any act of dishonesty. Any such conduct will draw a harsh punishment for bidders and potential bidders,” said Ngavetene.
In essence, Shangadi’s business - Neu Olulya - is barred from participating in public procurement for six months.
Banned alongside Neu Olulya is Kinetic Ovation in the bid to construct a new primary school at Swakopmund.
This is after Kinetic Ovation submitted a letter of intent from Standard Bank which was falsified and unauthentic.
Circumvention
Yesterday, the procurement board also laid bare its performance during the current financial year (FY).
Information provided by the public bidding administrator shows that it adjudicated and approved six individual procurement plans (IPS) valued at N$513.5 million.
This is a reduction of N$116.8 million when juxtaposed to the previous FY [2021/2022].
This could be attributed to the poor performance of the economy.
There is more than meets the eye, Ngavetene said.
It is also his view that some public entities could be breaking down their procurement contracts so as to keep them below the N$35 million threshold, in order to keep the CPBN at bay.
Currently, the Procurement Board and Roads Authority are squaring off in court over this very rule in connection with various tenders for the maintenance of tarred roads.
The RA is adamant that the individual tenders do not exceed the N$35 million threshold as they have been divided into a number of sub-tenders with an average value of about N$10 million each.
In June, the review panel concluded that the individual value of the five tenders as advertised by RA in September 2021 were above the N$35 million public entities threshold, thus they needed to go through the procurement board.
The procurement board only gets involved in a public tender exceeding N$35 million.
“The central procurement board is a creator of statutes, and if they are doing that, we will pick it up and deal with it,” Ngavetene said.
Additionally, the board awarded 37 contracts valued at N$1.4 billion.
Ninety seven percent of these contracts were awarded to 100% Namibian owned entities.
Their nature of procurement ranges from the construction of schools, VTCs, health facilities, telecommunications services, security services, school feeding programme, health supplies and cleaning services.
So far, 8.7% (six) of the ongoing projects have exceeded expectations while 45.8 (33) are described as ‘on track’.
Meanwhile, another 8.3% (six) projects are punching below their weight while 26.4% (19) cannot be assessed, as they are less than three months old.
More so, only one contract (1.4%) was terminated during the year under review while no progress reports exist for another six projects.
To date, a single contract is yet to be handed over, despite it being signed between the board and successful bidder. No further information was provided.
Additionally, four bids valued at N$74.7 million were cancelled during the period under the spotlight.
These includes the billing services for the Namibia Civil Aviation Authority. The authority requested the cancellation.
Another cancellation was for security services provision for Telecom Namibia. The recommendation came from the review panel, which falls under the finance ministry.
A tender to provide security services at VTCs across the country also raised eyebrows.
“The procurement did not create or achieve the expected outcome in that there were anomalies in the bidding document that resulted in a lot of bidders being eliminated or disqualified from the evaluation,” reads part of the dossier availed by the board.
Caption: (Arafat) Idle… Failure to complete the construction of the Nkurenkuru Vocational Training Centre has caused a businessman to be blacklisted by the procurement board.
Photo: Contributed