IMED hearing on ‘anomalies’ in coal import Wednesday

The Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division (IMED) of the Panning Ministry is scheduled to hold a hearing Wednesday regarding “allegation of anomalies” in the coal procurement process for the Matarbari power plant.

A review panel would hold the hearing after an international consortium alleged that a quarter of the Coal Power Generation Company Bangladesh Limited (CPGCBL) committed irregularities in the tender process for importing coal for the power plant.

IMED Review Panel-3 Chairperson Faruque Hossain sent a letter to the company secretary of the procurement agency CPGCBL on Monday.

In the letter, the senior secretary of Power Division and managing director of CPGCBL have been requested to send appropriate representatives to attend the hearing. All participants have to take part in the hearing with the documents related to the tender, purchase plan, advertisement, revaluation report and written reply to the complaint.

The hearing panel consists of retired secretaries Md Enamul Kabir, Faruque Hossain, retired district judges Syed Enayet Hossain, Nuruzzaman, and Federation of Bangladesh Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FBCCI) directors Abul Kashem Khan and Nadia Binte Amin.

IMED sent a letter to CPGCBL on 13 June for the first time regarding the hearing.

In that letter, the authorities mentioned that an individual named Jalal Uddin, on behalf of an international consortium, has filed a plea with the review panel, alleging that some dishonest CPGCBL officials were trying to award the coal supply contract to an ineligible venture in exchange of “special benefits” in breach of tender regulations.

The date for the hearing was initially set on 27 June but was later rescheduled to Wednesday.

Earlier, on 11 June, IMED directed CPGCBL not to issue any notification of award in the tender process for supplying coal to the Matarbari coal-fired power plant.

An international consortium participating in the tender process lodged a complaint with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on 6 June, questioning the transparency of the procurement process. It also applied to the IMED, seeking a review of the tender process.

In April, IMED sent a letter to the Power Division’s senior secretary, stating that proper standards were not maintained in the tender process to import coal for the Matarbari power plant.

The authorities also held a meeting on 5 June to negotiate with a particular company for coal supply, which violates the existing laws and regulations of the country, and it is completely unethical and illegal, according to the letter.

Four domestic and foreign organisations submitted proposals for the contract, following the proper procedure, but three of them were initially excluded on the pretext that they lacked financial capacity.

Later, a technical committee meeting on 27 May rejected the financial proposals of all four organisations. According to the decision of the board meeting of CPGCBL held on 31 May, considering the national importance of the current situation, approval was given to reconsider Unique Cement Consortium’s proposal.

However, one of the three consortia that got their bids rejected due to the arbitrary decisions of the project officials applied to the senior secretary of the Power Division on 29 May for re-evaluation of the tender.

The initial conditions of the tender required that the contractor company must have experience of importing at least 12 million tonnes of coal, which is a relevant condition for tenders engaged in importing coal.

But that condition was relaxed for giving an unfair advantage to a particular company. To favour the venture, the condition was changed to an experience of importing 12 tonnes of iron, fertiliser and chemical, cement or food grains.

Apart from the anomalies in the tender process of coal supply, CPGCBL procured 19 pieces of small tools such as hammer, metal pipe cutter and silicon guns at Tk2.75 crore for the power plant in January.

In the much talked about shipment, CPGCBL claimed the price of two German-made hammers was shown to be Tk1.82 lakh. Similarly, the price of two pipe cutters made by the same German company was shown Tk92.99 lakh.