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worth of energy saver bulbs by 45 days.
SPB cancelled the first tenders in September because the bidders had failed to meet the specifications to supply 5,5 million energy saving bulbs.
A formal tender was then opened early last month and was supposed to close on October 18.
Energy and Power Development Minister Elton Mangoma, recently argued that the reasons for the cancellation of the tender were not judicious.
Minister Mangoma yesterday claimed the delay and cancellation of the tender was a result of underhand dealings at the power utility.
“Some of the factors to this (cancellation and delays) are greed and dishonesty on the part of Zesa people,” he said without elaborating.
However, Zimbabwe Electricity Transmission and Distribution Company managing director, Mr Julian Chinembiri, yesterday said it was impossible to manipulate the tender process.
“The adjudication is done by user department, procurement administrator and an official from the Ministry of Finance. This committee can then recommend to the State Procurement Board. The board then makes its own adjudication and a final decision made. We do not have direct contact with the suppliers because that is done by SPB . . . I do not know how it can be possible for us to influence the SPB,” he said.
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Mr Chinembiri said the suppliers requested for the extension.
However, the extension will result in the power utility delaying the distribution of free Compact Fluorescent Lamps (CFLs), continuing to stress the national grid.
Zesa had promised to distribute free CFLs by end of this year.
“It is likely that most of the bulbs will be distributed in the first quarter of next year.
“After the tender has been awarded we will have to negotiate the contract, which will give us a clear picture of when the bulbs will be delivered,” said Mr Chinembiri.
Mr Chinembiri said everything was being done above board.
In separate interviews recently, some bidders said Zesa Holdings would incur more costs than had been tendered for.
“The challenge that they will face now is that of prices because obviously most of the bidders have increased prices because the manufacturers have increased the prices as well,” said a source.
Another one added: “We do not understand why this tender has taken this long. We suspect there are some interested parties in this whole thing because this is just an ordinary tender but they want to make it unique in ways we don’t understand.
“Most of the companies that forwarded their bids obviously had to increase their price because of a number of factors and it’s very likely that now Zesa will pay more than what had been tendered first.”
Zesa Holdings intends to distribute energy saver bulbs before end of year to save about 200 megawatts.
The power utility is currently generating about 1 300 Megawatts against a national demand of 2 200 Megawatts.
Online Reporter