KATHMANDU, Aug 23: National Reconstruction Authority (NRA) has submitted its investigation report on procurement of services for reconstruction of Dharahara to the Office of the Prime Minister and Council of Ministers on Sunday.
The report, however, lacks any authentication of documents of participating bidders as questioned by one of the bidders.
NRA concluded its investigation after the Chinese embassy in Kathmandu wrote to the former, saying that it does not have the authority to authenticate documents of the bidders.
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The special vehicle formed by the government to oversee reconstruction works has sought the go ahead from the OPMCM to open financial proposals of the contractors to rebuild Dharahara -- a historic and iconic monument in Kathmandu which was damaged in the 2015 earthquakes.
After it failed to get go ahead from the OPMCM till Monday, and it decided to extend the deadline for opening financial proposal, which was expiring on Tuesday, to Friday. It is the sixth extension to the deadline.
Raju Manandhar, a joint secretary of NRA, told Republica that they were still awaiting response from the OPMCM.
NRA hadn't received any instruction on the issue from the OPMCM till office time on Wednesday.
Earlier, five contracting firms -- Kalika-Rasuwa-CICO JV, ZEIC-Lama Construction JV, CR5CEF-Swachhanda Nirman Sewa JV, CFEC-Kumar JV and GIETC Raman JV -- were deemed qualified for bidding by the NRA. However, the process to open their financial proposal has been put on hold after one of the participating contractors -- Kalika-Rasuwa-CICO JV -- filed a complaint at OPMCM, accusing Raman Construction of submitted fake documents of its JV partner GIETC to bag the contract.
After receiving the complaint, OPMCM asked NRA to look into the matter and submit report within three days. But NRA managed to submit report only after a month.
Raman Construction has also filed a complaint at the OPMCM, stating that NRA was showing biasness by dragging its feet to open financial proposals even though the prequalification round has already been completed.
An official of one of the participating contractor told Republica that Kalika-Rasuwa filed complaint against Raman Construction after finding out that the latter has quoted about Rs 500 million lower than it. Kalika and Rasuwa allegedly colluded with three other bidders to win the contract, while Raman Construction filed the contract on its own, the official added.
