Losing bidders cry foul

RIGA - The Procurement Monitoring Bureau has banned the Freeport of Riga Authority from signing an 88.7 million lats (126.7 million euros) contract with the company BMGS S on infrastructure development on Krievu Island in the Daugava River in order to move port activity further away from Riga center, reports news agency LETA. The Procurement Monitoring Bureau made the decision following complaints filed by the companies Aarsleff-Merko and Josef Mobius Bau - Aktiengesellschaft, according to the bureau’s official Web site.

The total project cost is estimated at about 105 million lats, of which approximately 52 million lats could be covered by the European Union’s co-funding.
The bidders included BMGS S, Josef Mobius Bau-Aktiengesellschaft and Aarsleff - Merko.

According to the competition charter, the winning bidder would have to dredge deeper the port’s access canal, build wharves, new access roads on Krievu Island, a new railroad track, the island’s sewerage system, telecommunication systems, gas supply network, external power lines, several buildings and others.

Josef Mobius Bau - Aktiengesellschaft claimed in its petition that the criteria of the competition may have been unjustified and that BMGS S should not have been permitted to participate in the tender, taking into account that the company was a member of the Juras projekts company, whose employees participated in drawing up the technical project for the tender procedure. Aarsleff - Merko also filed a similar complaint.

The Procurement Monitoring Bureau reports that after analyzing the materials in the case and hearing out the parties involved as well as experts, the bureau decided that the two complaints were partly justified.
The Bureau decided that the three bids would have to be reviewed again by the Freeport of Riga Authority, taking into consideration the bureau’s conclusions and adopting a new methodology for evaluation of the bids.
The decision may be appealed to the Administrative District Court within one month.