Study to examine process of calling for bids
BDO Jawad Habib has been appointed to handle a pilot project to test-run a Business Process Re-engineering programme that the Tender Board has awarded to the firm as part of efforts to streamline and simplify tendering procedures, thus making them more cost-effective.
Minister of State, Chairman of the Tender Board and Acting Minister of Works and Housing, Dr Abdulhussain Ali Mirza, yesterday received representatives of BDO Jawad Habib at his office yesterday.
Dr Mirza said the pilot project will be initially conducted at the Ministry of Works and Housing, and preparations are under way to study the feasibility of implementing such a study in other government purchasing departments.
Four companies had bid to develop and run the Business Process Re-engineering project. They were KPMG Consulting, Pricewaterhouse Coopers, BDO Jawad Habib and Ernst & Young. The lowest bid came from BDO Jawad Habib at BD16, 200.000 and the highest from Pricewaterhouse Coopers at BD30,000. Between the other two bidders there was less than BD1,000 difference - Ernst & Young put in a bid of BD19,495 and KPMG Consulting quoted BD20,000.
The business processes re-engineering study is to examine how the entire process of calling for bids, examining them and awarding them can be shortened even further, Dr Mirza said.
"A study of the Board's performance shows that from the time an organisation comes to us with a recommendation on whom to award the bid, once all bids are opened till the time we examine the bid, reply and award the project takes one to two weeks," he said.
"This is a very good record. However, there is a very lengthy process before the bid reaches us, especially in the case of technical projects. For instance, if the project involved building a bridge or an IT studies wing for a school, for example, the ministries concerned would evaluate the project extensively before getting Ministry of Finance approval. It has sometimes been observed that when five or 10 people need to give inputs on the project, the plan take a long time to complete the approval cycle. The Business Process Re-engineering study will seek answers to some tough questions such as how to rationalise the time spent on approvals of projects, how best to avoid delays and cut red tape. We feel that adopting up-to-date business processes will cut this time further and save money and time."
The Tender Board's annual report noted that a total of 1,100 tenders representing 5,800 bids were processed during this time. The tenders awarded have been valued at BD395 million (including the largest project handled - the Bapco refinery upgrade project for which JGC was awarded a $431 million deal).
"We calculated the savings to the Kingdom by comparing the actual estimated cost and the actual final award price and this shows that we contributed with other agencies to save BD 26 million for Bahrain," Dr Mirza said. "Currently we function under the present laws governing the Board's activities but I anticipate that this will be revised in the future since more and more contractors are demanding that projects for companies such as Alba where the government has a smaller stake should also come under the review of the Board. Naturally, when this happens, we expect that the Board too will be expanded."
The meeting was attended by Abdulaziz Al Gassab, Secretary-General of the Tender Board, and the Assistant Undersecretary for Human and Financial Resources, Acting Assistant Undersecretary, Construction, projects and Maintenance at the Ministry of Works and Housing, Mohammed Khalil Al Sayed.
© Bahrain Tribune 2004
