PANJIM: Slamming the violation of conditions stated in the tender for the 37th National Games 2023 held in Goa, political analyst Trajano D’Mello on Thursday demanded that a probe be constituted to thoroughly check/audit all aspects of the work of “Event days Operations and Overlays for the 37th National Games 2023,” and not to sanction or pay the final bill till the investigation in the said matter is completed properly.
Referring to 10-member ‘Technical Evalution Committee’s (TEC) financial report, Trajano said, “TEC had mentioned that M/s GOBANANAS tender was 2.20% below the estimated cost by SAG, which was a difference of Rs 14,63,521.”
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He criticised TEC for blindly allowing the tender by accepting the underquoted price of diesel @ Rs 50 per litre, and for 14 days the total amount was Rs 2.10 crore. But at that time the market rate of diesel was Rs 90.37 per litre and 14 days it was Rs 3.78 crore. The difference of Rs 1.68 crore would have thrown the Event Management Company “GOBANANAS” out of competition and therefore, rigging or underpricing was allowed deliberately.
After scrutinising the documents obtained under RTI Act, Trajano disclosed some startling facts, wherein the original bid price was Rs 1,09,86,33,000 but the Pro Invoice Price was Rs 1,68,08,22,234 showing a difference of Rs 58,21,89,234.
Trajano further exposed vast difference between bid price and pro invoice price in different functional areas such as venue operations, accreditation, venue branding, workforce, venue overlays, satin and toiletries.
The over-invoicing or manipulation, which is nothing but a daylight robbery of public exchequer money, was also seen in the agency using high priced DG sets instead of low-priced DG sets.
Trajano said that the RTI information reveals massive bid rigging whereby the said agency bagged the tender by submitting irrational costing for differently rated DG (generator sets) and underquoted diesel rate Rs 50 per litre, which is how they were able to bag this tender (Rs 92.9 crore+GST).
He added that, the agency at the time of submitting the final bid, had over inflated their invoices by combination of utilising only the higher priced DG sets and not sharing their final charged price of diesel.
Taking into consideration all these manipulations which will definitely cause a loss of public exchequer money, Trajano said, demanding to start a probe to audit all the aspects of the work and not to sanction or pay the final bill till the investigation is completed.
