Another juice bidder protests

The newly established Bid Protest Committee (BPC) now has three cases to deliberate on as Guyana Beverages Inc (GBI), has joined Demerara Distillers Limited (DDL) in protesting the award for the supply of juices to the Ministry of Education’s distribution programme. The BPC received its first protest, from the Cevons Waste Management Group, shortly after its establishment in July of this year, on the grounds that a $221 million contract for the management and maintenance of the Haags Bosch landfill on the East Bank Demerara had been improperly awarded to Puran Brothers Disposal Inc. Representative of Guyana Beverages Inc, Mark Pelting, whose company supplies the Fruta Kool Kidz brand of juice, told Stabroek News yesterday that his company has now also submitted a formal protest on the juice supply and delivery contract award. “We are also challenging this award. We feel too, that we have been unjustly disqualified and we want them to explain to us why.”

The contract that GBI and DDL are protesting is an award that went to the Suriname company, Caribbean International Distributors Inc (CIDI), a subsidiary of Rudisa, for the supply and distribution of boxed juices for national distribution under the Ministry of Education’s National School Feeding Programme. Four bids were submitted for the contract, on May 24 of this year, when the National Procurement and Tender Administration Board opened tenders at its Main and Urquhart streets office, Georgetown.