By Mabinty Kamara
A contractor who failed to secure a lucrative deal with the Sierra Leone Roads Safety Authority (SLRSA) on the basis of alleged forgery has denied the claims made against the corporation..
Mohamed Conteh, Managing Director of Alumed International (SL) Ltd, also denied failing to submit relevant documents on time as part of a bidding process for the construction of an office space for SLRSA at their Africanus Road branch in Kissy, east of Freetown.
The bidding process for the contract worth over US$1.7 million, first publicized in August 2014 and opened in October the same year, attracted nine bidders.
According to SLRSA officials, Alumed emerged as the most competent bidder and the company was informed accordingly. It was also informed to fulfil six conditions before the contract documents could be signed.
SLRSA officials told journalists at a press conference recently that they would later found out that the company had presented “forged NRA documents” indicating that they had paid their taxes.
Mohamed Dumbuya, SLRSA’s public relations officer, told journalists that they couldn’t award the contract to an “irresponsible” person. He said the essence of the press conference was also to “clear the air” as Alumed had been spreading “false information” against SLRSA and its Executive Director, Sarah Bendu.
While admitting that he couldn’t provide all the documents requested by SLRSA initially, Conteh said his plea for extension of the deadline was granted. He told Politico that he could not submit the advance payment guarantee on time, which SLRSA insisted was a crucial requirement for the award of a contract because his banker, the Sierra Leone Commercial Bank, had already dissolved their board, whose approval was needed for such a huge sum of money. He added that they would later transfer his collateral to Guarantee Trust Bank (SL) Limited so that the advance payment guarantee could be issued within the time requested for.
Conteh claimed that SLRSA kept postponing the signing of the contract after they had done all that until they were served with a letter of termination of the contract.
The businessman also denied forging his tax clearance, pointing out the fact that SLRSA’s letter terminating their contract never mentioned such as a reason for their decision.
He also challenged the Authority to provide evidence that they, as a company, had been spreading false information about them.
He argued that before recommending a bidder as “the most responsive”, a lot of background check about the individual or the company would have been done. He said the tax record of the bidder was key in such an investigation, but expressed surprised at why SLRSA would select them only to reverse the decision on the allegation that they hadn’t paid their taxes.
“If SLRSA did fail to verify the tax records with NRA before giving a notification letter to a bidder for a contract worth US$1.7M, then the Authority had failed the people of Sierra Leone,” Conteh said, insisting that his tax payment as presented was correct.
“That is incompetence on the part of the [Executive] Director, evaluation committee, and the procurement manager,” he charged, adding that Alumed International, situated at 30 Big Waterloo Street in central Freetown, had been in operations and in particular, building and construction, since 2002.
Conteh said in the course of their over a decade of existence, they had worked for reputable institutions like the UNDP, the National Commission for Social Action, Guma Valley Water Company, Oxfarm, among others, without any record of forgery or mismanagement.
But SLRSA officials had said that Conteh, the Alumed Managing Director, was pressuring the Authority to fast track the selection process because he wanted to use the money to fund a planned political campaign, an allegation Conteh had also denied.
He said he opted for a party symbol around February 2014 and that the bid was advertised in August 2014 and only got opened later in October.
“Why do I need money to secure a symbol in October when in fact the election had been held in April 2014?” he asked.
(C) Politico 19/01/16
