Gov’t receives 11 bids for the construction of Seac Pai Van Line

Secretary for Transport and Public Works Raimundo Arrais do Rosário said that he hopes bidders in the second tender for the construction of the Seac Pai Van Line (Light Rapid Transit) will meet the official requirements.
In May of this year, the Infrastructure Development Office (GDI) re-invited tenders for the project yesterday and received a total of 11 bids. The construction project is slated to commence in the second half of the year, to be completed in 890 working days at most.
Yesterday, do Rosário told the media that the construction period presented in some tenderers’ bids received in the first round was considered “too short,” as the government believed it was not technically feasible.
With regard to the second tendering process, do Rosário said it normally takes around one-and-a-half months for the government to evaluate the bids received. Including the process of awarding the tender and signing the contract with the selected firm, the entire tendering process will take around three to four months to be completed.
The GDI first invited tenders for the construction of the Seac Pai Van Line back in July 2020, with a total of 10 bidding documents submitted to the government.
However, on May 20, the GDI announced its decision to revoke the tender due to a notable discrepancy in budget and timeframe between the tender proposals and official prerequisites demanded by the government.
“After analysis, we believed that the bidding amounts and construction periods proposed by the tenderers were obviously low, and not in line with the timetable for the installation of [light rail’s] driving system, as stipulated in the tender document,” the GDI stated in the earlier release.
As such, the GDI modified the evaluation criteria for proposals received in the second round. The adjustments include increasing the proportion of engineering costs to 50% (an increase of 5%) and reducing the construction period to 30% (a reduction of 5%).
The GDI has now clearly stated in the tender document that the bidders must take into account any additional time required for the supply and installation of the rail’s driving system when proposing the overall construction time for the project.