A Chinese construction company, China Wuyi Co., has made the lowest offer in a bid to construct an office complex for the Meles Zenawi Leadership Academy under City Administration with an offer of 1.3 billion Br. It will be built along the road from Bole to Megengna, behind Ethiopian Revenues & Customs Authority headquarters.
The Academy, has six chapters nationally. Four established by regional states’ regulation in Amhara, Oromia, Tigray and Southern Nations and Nationalities. Two more chapters are physically present in the Capital-the Addis Abeba City administration’s and The Federal Chapters.
All have their respective budget lines from the establishing region and function autonomously level. The Federal chapter mandated in 2013 is accountable to the Prime Minister’s Office, focusing on Capacity building schemes to all chapters.
The first President of the Academy, Addisu Legesse, a veteran of the armed struggle and long-serving chairman of Amhara National Democratic Movement (ANDM), was replaced by Tewodros Hagos, four months ago.
The centre which was established under regulation number 67/2013 by the City Council in 2013, was integrated with the former City Management Institute.
The Academy’s new offices will each have nine blocks with heights ranging from seven storeys to 19 storeys. The campus will accommodate up to 4,000 students. The building will rest on three hectares to four hectares of land. The building is expected to be completed within two and half years if the bid process goes smoothly and will be financed from the city’s budget.
The bid opening took place at the Public Procurement & Property Disposal Service’s premises on March 22, 2016, on King George VI Street.
The three finalists emerged from 39 participants that had bought the bid document following the announcement made in October 13, 2015. Only 11 submitted offers before the deadline.
IFH Engineering Plc, a common player in the construction field was dropped out of the race early on the preliminary evaluation for an unauthenticated document.
“The Company submitted a document that showed that it was a joint venture, but the document indicating the partnership has nothing in it that shows its legality,” a procurement officer closely following the case told Fortune, requesting that his name be withheld.
Eight more joined IFH Engineering Plc but only two were able to meet the technical standards set by the evaluating committee. These were Wuyi and TACON. Among the failed eight, YOTEK and AfroTsion, appealed to the Public Procurement & Asset Disposal Compliant Review & Decision Setting Board for a revision of the result.
YOTEK challenged the decision on the basis that Wuyi did not prove its debt to asset ratio to be more than one. AfroTsion, along the same line, argued against the technical committee’s decision to drop it for not having a track record of executing budgets as big as that for the Academy project.
Having looked at the appeal by the two companies, the Board chaired by Alemayehu Gujo, state minister for Finance & Economic Cooperation, decided to give the green light for YOTEK to be reinstated into the bidding process but declined to change its decision on Afro’s appeal.
“The committee found the ratio falling behind the standard one so marginal, it therefore allowed YOTEK to bid,” said the officer. “This was done to ensure wider option for the financial offer.”
Unfortunately for AfroTsion, its appeal was rejected by the Board.
A source from AfroTsion told Fortune that the company was rejected from the bid because of its track record in two projects, Jimma University and Haromaya Sport Academy. It was rejected because it did not submit a document which clearly indicated that there was no delay in those projects.
However, the company tried to convince the Service after the bid that it had the document from the consultant and the owner of those two projects, showing there was no unjustified delay. Armed with that document, Afro appelled to the Board, but its appeal was rejected on the basis that those documents should have been submitted earlier.
So far the Academy managed by the city, has trained close to 3,000 civil servants.
“The civil servants basically take training in government policies and strategies,” said its Director, Kahasaye Woldemariam.
So far, none of the branches except the one in Tigray Region, which is under construction, and now the Academy in Addis, owns offices. The ones in Amhara and Southern regions host the Academy in their existing Regional Management Institutes. The Oromia office is lagging far behind the others and is yet to launch operations.
The federal office under the directorship of Tewodros is expected to begin the construction of its premises in Sululta Town, north of Addis Abeba. The financing will come from the Chinese government.
“There should be no impression that because the Chinese are financing the Academy, the training will be ideologically restricted to the Chinese way,” said Tewodros.
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