Warri Channel Contract : Dredging Company Accuses NPA of $44.861m Fraud

ABIOLA Seun      |

The Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA) has been accused of fraud and corruption in the award of the $44.861million (N16.150 billion) Warri Channel dredging contract to Dredging International Services Nigeria (DISN) Limited, a subsidiary of Dredging International Services (Cyprus) Limited, the company that was involved in the $20 million bribery of ex-officials of the NPA.
The NPA, Dredging International Services Nigeria and Dredging Atlantic Limited (DAL) are currently embroiled in a battle royal over the Warri Channel dredging contract.
Legal Counsel to Dredging Atlantic Limited, Mr Liborous Oshoma who made the allegation in a chat with newsmen in Lagos accused NPA of falsifying figures to make DISN bid at par with the bid of his client to enable it award the contract to the convicted company.
According to him, “Dredging International is a Cyprus-based subsidiary of the Belgian petroleum infrastructure and dredging group DEME. DISCL was sentenced last year May in Switzerland and asked to a fine of Sfr one million (US$ 1.03 million) and repay Sfr 36 million (US$ 37.3 million) of illegal profit.
“Officials of DISCL, DISN, Bert Wille and Steven Poppe and those of the NPA, Hadiza Bala-Usman, Mohammed Belo-Koko and Idris Abubakar are directors of Bonny Channel Company Limited (BCCL), a special purpose vehicle established by the NPA and DISN for the execution of Bonny Channel dredging.”
He said Dredging Atlantic Limited emerged first in the technical bid by scoring 89 points as against 75 points scored by Dredging International Limited.
He added that his client also won the commercial bid with a bid of $44.880 million as against $44.998 million bided by Dredging International Limited.
Also, documents obtained revealed that the Bureau of Public Procurement (BPP) admitted a procedural lapse on the part of NPA in arithmetic correction in the figures of Dredging Atlantic Limited.
In response to a request for an administrative review of the decisions of the procurement department of the NPA in respect of the contract, the BPP in a letter to the Managing Director of Dredging Atlantic Limited admitted that the NPA carried out arithmetic corrections on the financial tenders of both Messrs Dredging International Services Nigeria and Dredging Atlantic Limited as part of the evaluation process to ensure that tender prices are correct and that bidders are properly ranked.
The BPP in the letter: BPP/S.1/A&WR/18/VOL.I/079, dated March 23, 2018, read in parts, “This is to refer to the Dredging Atlantic Limited letter of compliant dated February 28, 2018, which requested for an administrative review of the decision of the NPA with respect to the tender for remedial works at Escravos Channel-Replacement of Navigational Aids and Mirror Dredging at Delta Port Notice No-4012, over various acts of non-compliance with the requirements of the Public Procurement Act (PPA), 2007.
“Be informed that the Bureau received a request for Due Process Certificate of “Non Objection” from the NPA for award of this project and that the request has already been reviewed and certified by the Bureau. Notwithstanding the above and in accordance with sec. 54 of the PPA, 2007, the Bureau has considered the complaints raised in your letter and wishes to comment as follows: the NPA carried out arithmetic corrections on the financial tenders of both Messrs Dredging International Services Nigeria and Dredging Atlantic Limited as part of the evaluation process to ensure that tender prices are correct and that bidders are properly ranked.
“Sec. 31(4) of the PPA, 2007 supports correction of arithmetic errors. The NPA however failed to communicate the outcome of the corrections to the affected bidders in line with sec. 31(5) of the PPA, 2007. This procedural lapse has already been communicated to the NPA to ensure compliance in subsequent procurements but is not grievous enough to warrant nullifying the tender exercise.”
The BPP added, “Messrs DAL alleged that the NPA refused the DAL/ its representatives to counter sign on all vital pages of the tender of Messrs DISN. The Bureau observed this lapse during the prior review exercise on this procurement proceeding and drew the attention of the NPA to Clause 60 of the Public Procurement Regulations for goods and works, and advised the NPA to ensure strict compliance with this procedure in subsequent procurements in order to enhance transparency and ensure that there are no substitutions of bids after submission.
“Considering that the Bureau has not observed this as a persistent breach by the NPA, this procedural lapse is not sufficient to warrant cancellation of the entire procurement proceeding. Messrs DAL further alleged that the NPA manipulated the publicly announced tender figures of Messrs DISN from $44,998,053.76 to $44,861,596.81 and the tender figures from Messrs DAL from $44, 880, 348.21 to $44, 918,741.22 during the arithmetic errors checks and corrections. As indicated earlier in paragraph 3a above, the Bureau confirmed that the changes in tender process were due to purely arithmetical errors which were corrected by the NPA during evaluation and confirmed, verified by the BPP to be correct during prior review. This allegation is not correct and cannot be upheld by the Bureau.”
However, in a statement further made available to journalists, the legal adviser to DAL, Liborous Oshoma, denounced BPP’s claims stressing that the Bureau’s analysis only captured Items Nos 3.0,1 & 3.0.2 in DAW Bid total value in Naira without splitting same in Naira and US Dollars, thus increasing the Naira component of DAW’s Bid whilst decreasing the US Dollars component of the same Bid thereby arriving at a wrong conclusion.
“Also, in the same item 3.01 & 3.0.2 we observed that the Bureau imputed a unit rate of N41,216.22 Naira and$135.14 US Dollars, also N82,432.35 Naira and $270.27Dollars respectively for DISN even when it was stated clearly and obvious from the procuring entity’s Solicitation document that the item has no Unit/Quantity. One begins to wonder where NPA and or the Bureau got the said Unit price they multiplied by Quantity in their analysis from. This further confirms our suspicion of Bid rigging against us.
“On the issues, assuming DISN sought clarification from NPA as inferred by the Bureau in their conclusions, then correspondingly by virtue of S.23(6) of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 NPA ought to have communicated any response to such request to Bidders as is the practice in Bid Tendering globally, “he said.
Oshoma added that the question the BPP failed to answer is, “How come the lowest bidder as publicly announced Dredging Atlantic Ltd/West Minister Dredging (DAW) had “errors” and or additional figures (increase) of N11,709,932.84 ($38,393.23) to arrive at $44,918,741.22 as against the publicly announced figure of $44,880,348.21, while the highest bidder Dredging International Services Limited (DIS) had “errors” and or subtracted figures (a reduction) of $136,456.95 (N41,619,369.75) to arrive at $44,861,596.81 as against the announced figure of $44,998,053.76?
“S. 54 (4) (a) (5) of the Public Procurement Act (2007) ‘PPA’ spelt out clearly what steps can and should be taken by the NPA/Bureau upon receipt of a complaint, like suspending any further action by the procuring entity and notifying all interested bidders (including the complainant) to make representations. In clear violations of above provisions of the PPA the Bureau refused to either extend any invitation to us to make representations to substantiate our Claims or suspend the procurement process, as demanded by the Act and the Convention of the Bureau laid out in the Public Procurement Act, 2007 and the Public Procurement Regulations for Goods and Works.
We are not only shocked and overwhelmed, that the Bureau like NPA also bluntly refused to comply with the provisions S. 31(5) of the Public Procurement Act, 2007 by failing to either notify us of any arithmetic corrections or invite us to either adopt or defend/deny same, but sad that of all the complaint they only reprimanded NPA, and went ahead to unfortunately misdirect itself by holding thus; “…….This procedural lapses has already been communicated to the NPA to ensure compliance in subsequent procurement.”
When contacted, the Assistant General Manager, Corporate and Strategic Communication of the Nigerian Ports Authority (NPA), Mallam Isa Suwaid said the corruption case against Dredging International Services Nigeria outside the country cannot stop it from successfully bidding for a contract in Nigeria.
He however advised Dredging Atlantic Limited to accept the result of the bidding process which he said was transparently done.
“The last time when these aggrieved company that lost the bid published something like this, the management is of the opinion that they are doing this because they lost the contract. “Secondly, as far as NPA is concerned, the procedures of awarding contract to the company that won the contract was transparently done and even if the company was indicted in another country or even if the MD did say that, that doesn’t prevent them from bidding for another job if they have all the credentials that is why they bided and it was transparently done and the contract awarded to them.”
Suwaid also denied conflict of interest saying because the MD was the board Chairman of the Bonny Channel Company Limited which the MD of the Dredging International Service Nigeria is also a member doesn’t influence the outcome of the bidding process which he said was transparently done.
“There is nothing like conflict of interest. Everything was strictly done transparently and according to the best practice. However, my message to them is that they should accept that they have lost the contract and the best company was given the opportunity to execute,” Suwaid said.

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