N$122m fence under fire

‘Emergency’ procurement questioned *From 23 bids to emergency award * Cancellation came before end of review period * Does fence justify emergency procurement? * Competitive tender ‘failed to achieve expected outcome’ EXPERTS are questioning the Central Procurement Board of Namibia’s cancellation of a competitive tender to award a N$122-million fence project using emergency procurement. Political analyst Ndumba Kamwanyah says the decision could expose the board to legal challenges and create the impression that the cancellation was intended to favour a particular bidder. The project, which attracted 23 bids, involves erecting 185km of veterinary cordon fencing, 155km along the Orange River and 30km between Klein Menasse and Mata Mata, to protect Namibia’s livestock export market against foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) outbreaks from neighbouring South Africa.

This has resulted in China Jiangxi International (Namibia) JV Homefin Properties CC being announced as the successful bidder with a tender price of N$126 million. However, the Central Procurement Board of Namibia (CPBN) later cancelled the procurement process, saying it had failed to create or achieve “the expected outcome”, before invoking emergency procurement provisions and awarding the project to Punchu Trading CC JV China State Construction Engineering Co. Southern Africa for N$122 million. Kamwanyah says the CPBN needs to clearly explain why the competitive process was cancelled and why emergency procurement was considered necessary. “It raises concerns over transparency and openness of the process, depending on what the grounds of cancellation were and what made them opt for an emergency procurement process,” he says. “If you award the first bidder and cancel it and give it to the second bidder, you are…