Expert-Grup

An access road in Chișinău municipality built under suspicious tender-rigging conditions

Thursday, 12 May 20168883 views
An access road in Chișinău municipality built under suspicious tender-rigging conditions

Automatically translated summary. The full article is available in Romanian.

Experts at the Independent Think Tank “Expert-Grup” have monitored the construction of the access road to Humulești village in Chișinău municipality. They found numerous irregularities, both at the tender stage and during the works, as well as major risks that the public procurement procedure was rigged.

The experts say priority-setting for capital road works in Chișinău is not transparent, and it is unclear why a road to a village of just over 200 residents was chosen. The procurement plan was not published, its estimated sum was three times higher than in the published intention notice, and no contract award notice was published. Of three bidders, two (“Lincons” SRL and S.A. “Edilitate”) were disqualified, while ICS “Utiltrans Construct” won despite the highest price and incomplete documents.

Its bid of MDL 23,930,000 differs by only 21 bani from the plan's estimate of MDL 23,930,000.21. The contract was later raised in two amendments to MDL 29.3 million, 22% above the original, and the deadline extended from 9 months to 2.5 years, to end-2016. The monitoring will continue with other Chișinău roads.

View the original article in Romanian