FERENTINO Tyre Corporation's response to: “Cabinet approves Rs. 566mn tyre tender despite concerns by engineers”
FERENTINO Tyre Corporation (Pvt) Ltd., has written to us regarding a news item published last week under the headline; “Cabinet approves Rs. 566mn tyre tender despite concerns by engineers” by Namini Wijedasa.
The company states that the news item misrepresents to the reader that the fourmonth tender for the supply of tyres to the Sri Lanka Transport Board has been improperly awarded and that the quality and technical specifications of the tyres to be supplied under the contract do not conform to the tender specifications and thus pose a significant threat to public safety. This position is entirely false, and could have been easily ascertained had you extended the most basic courtesy of verifying your information from our company prior to publication.
It further points out that the news item refers to “concerns in transport circles about a number of crucial technical specifications that the winning bidder had itself departed from".and adds; "We also note that your article erroneously refers to “a technical evaluation committee (TEC) finding that the product sold by the winning bidder had deviated from a multitude of fixed, predetermined specifications.” Had you duly and properly inquired into the matter prior to publication, you would have been made aware that there was no such finding by the Technical Evaluation Committee in the evaluation of Ferentino’s bid. In fact, if the TEC had made such a finding, Ferentino’s bid would not have been considered to be substantially responsive and would have been rejected at the evaluation stage.
In point of fact, the statement states what has been incorrectly referred to as the finding by a “three-member TEC” was not in
fact a finding of the Technical Evaluation Committee appointed to evaluate the tenders for the supply of tyres to the Sri Lanka Transport Board but a letter "purportedly" been prepared by three employees of the Sri Lanka Transport Board.That letter contains grossly inaccurate observations based on a visual inspection of the tyres carried out in the absence of any scientific and/ or technical testing. This is a fact that could have been possibly verified had the company's and the views of the Sri Lanka Transport Board on this matter been obtained prior to the publication of your article.
NEWS DESK NOTE: The news item concerned was in the public interest because it was a matter concerning public road transportation of the poor and underprivileged. We found all tender parties violated tender requirements, such was mentioned in the copy, and called for the tender to be refloated. The Chairman of the SLTB has admitted to these flaws and argued "the tyre crisis" as the urgency to fast forward this tender despite these flaws - much the same way of the controversy involving the import of faulty pharmaceutical drugs in the health sector.
With regard to Ferentino's allegation that what we quoted was not from the Cabinet Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC), our report did not refer to an evaluation committee appointed by Cabinet. According to a written statement by the SLTB Chairman which is now in the public domain, the Ferentino tyre samples were first found not to fit the required tender specifications by Gampaha District Engineer. By his own admission, he then appointed three officials of the SLTB Head Office’s Technical Division who also recommended that the procurement of these tyres could not proceed. It is the report of this “technical group” that our news report widely cites.