From Uchenna Inya, Abakaliki
Ebonyi State government has denied awarding N4.1 billion projects without bidding processes to make the projects competitive.
Commissioner for Information and State Orientation, Jude Okpor, described an online media publication as a self-conceived, subjective and unresearched report designed to dish out lies and half truths to the public without recourse to the ethics of journalism.
“In as much as we do not regard the report as deserving of our diligent response, we wish to make few comments in order to assuage the reading public whose sensibilities may have been insulted by the obviously mischievous headline.
“The state government has over some period of time followed the reports and some clandestine activities of some of the reporters in the organisation and have come to a conclusion that the online media organization reporters are deliberate mischief makers who for want of news content dabble into self-conceived, subjective and unresearched reports, dishing out lies and half truths to the public without recourse to the ethics of journalism.
“We simply wish to assure them and their pay masters that their incessant media attack on Ebonyi State Government tantamount to effort in futility as the present government can never be distracted by such infantile diatribes.
“The online media organisation, in the report, alleged that multiple companies were not chosen to bid for the projects. Such an allegation is unfounded because it needed to have been lectured that in open tender, the state does not choose or select companies that will bid. All companies are allowed to submit bids for projects. It’s only in selective tender that the state chooses companies that will participate in the tender. On the projects in question, the procurement method used was open tender.
“The tenders were advertised for 30 days on the state e-procurement system, and if only one company paid tender fees and submitted a bid, that company can be awarded if their bid is responsive. Section 35 (2a) of the Ebonyi State Public Procurement Law (2020) specifies provisions to re-advertise a tender, and single bid submission is not among the conditions that should warrant re-advertising a tender.
“According to the State Public Procurement Law (2020), the Bureau of Public Procurement is not required to cancel the Tender process if only one company showed interest/submitted a bid for an open tender that has been advertised. In this case,the BPP proceeded with the evaluation and award of the project because the bids submitted were responsive.
“Good enough, the reporter in the report recognised that all the school projects were not awarded to only one company but different companies for each,” Okpor said.