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By Channa Kasturisinghe

The failure of heads of Government departments, statutory bodies and institutions under the Provincial Councils to adhere to the directives and circulars issued by the Treasury has made the Government Tender Board ineffective.

The Tender Board was appointed by the UNF Government immediately after it came to power to act as the final authority in deciding on bidding documents, evaluation of bids and award of contracts.

The ineffectiveness of the Tender Board has caused difficulties especially to construction contractors who have been already affected by non- payment for construction contracts undertaken by them.

According to a senior member of the Chamber of Construction Industry and the immediate past President of the Institute of Quantity Surveyors in Sri Lanka, H.D Chandrasena even the directives embodied in "Recommendations on Development of Domestic Construction Contractors" approved by the Cabinet of Ministers on August 10, 1988 are totally disregarded by the majority of state sector executing agencies.

"All attempts by various governments to ensure uniformity in the tender procedure and contract arrangements have not been successful. The executing authorities, especially the heads of departments, statutory bodies and organisations under Provincial Councils have failed to adhere to the directives and circulars issued by the Treasury or the Ministry of finance with the aim of streamlining the tender procedure. Therefore, the industry feels that the Government should take positive steps to implement these recommendations and also to make use of standard bidding documents and specifications mandatory to all state sector organisations whether under the central government or provincial councils," Chandrasena said.

The objectives of the government tender procedure are to keep the tender process fully transparent and honest, to speed up the process and to obtain financially the most advantageous and qualitative the best service and supplies for the country. Chandrasena said the tender procedure as practised today has failed to meet its objectives.

"On the contrary the Government Tender Board which is the final authority to decide on bidding documents, evaluation of bids and award of contracts has proved to be ineffective and sometimes hinders the speedy procurement process. Therefore, it is essential that the Government tender procedure should be reviewed with the aim of identifying its inherent weakness and drawbacks and to formulate a procedure for state sector contracts," Chandrasena said. He said in 1993, the government approved the adoption by all Government Organisations these procedures and also the recommendations of the "Kadiragamer Committee" which dealt with the upgrading of consultancy services in Sri Lanka.

"The Committee recommendations encourage independent consultancy services for various disciplines such as architecture, quantity surveying, structural engineering and services engineering. But it is sad to note that the committee recommendations have not been implemented to date.

Therefore, our Chamber proposed that the government should direct all state sector organisations to adopt the procedures and recommendations stated in the Treasury Circular No. public Fin. 327 of December 15, 1993," Chandrasena said.

According to the immediate past president of the National Construction Association of Sri Lanka (NCASL) D.D Wijemanne the Government continued to award contracts to State Sector agencies outside the Government tender procedure despite protests by the NCASL.

There have also been reports of Ministers influencing the activities of the Tender Board and some Ministries implementing tender procedures without consulting the Tender Board.

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Copyright 2001 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.
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