Three Namibian High Court judges have ordered that the Neckartal dam construction tender be overturned and that the process returned to the Tender Board.

Judge President Petrus Damaseb and Judges Shafimana Ueitele and Dave Smuts set aside the award of the tender to Italian company Salini, saying the tender should be awarded “in a manner that is consistent with the judgment of the court”.

The court challenge came from one of the bidders, CSC Neckartal Dam Joint Venture, a consortium of South African, Italian and Lebanese companies.

The dam, to be built on the Fish river, some 40 km west of Keetmanshoop, in southern Namibia, will be Namibia’s biggest construction project to date, with a price tag of N$2.87-billion.

The court found that the Tender Board was uninformed and specifically so that Knight Piésold Consulting (KPC) had recommended that another company, one of the three shortlisted, Vinci-Orascom Joint Venture, be awarded the tender.

Further, the board was not informed of a proposal by the joint evaluation committee, comprising engineers from KPC and officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry, that clarity from the companies be obtained about key staff involved in the project. This, the court said, amounted to material nondisclosure.

The court found that the board only had access to the views of the Ministry officials and not those of the Neckartal Steering Committee as well, as it should have been.

Said the judges: “The opposing views of the expert consultants as to who should be recommended and why were not disclosed to the Tender Board. This, in our view, also amounts to a material nondisclosure. “The cumulative effect of the failure to disclose those first three facts is, in our view, devastating to the legality of the decision-making and deprived the Tender Board from being able to apply its mind properly to the enquiry before it.”
The Neckartal dam tender has been fraught with problems and this will be the third time it returns to the Tender Board. In December 2011, the tender was awarded to China Henan International Cooperation Group but was later cancelled. In March this year, the tender was awarded to Salini, after the company had been shortlisted alongside Vinci-Orascom and CSC Neckartal Dam Joint Venture.

The bids were evaluated by the Neckartal Steering Committee, which was appointed by the Ministry of Agriculture, and KPC before a recommendation from the Ministry was forwarded to the Tender Board.

CSC Neckartal Joint Venture’s price was N$2.72-billion, with Vinci-Orascom’s and Salini’s prices being N$2.87-billion and N$2.89-billion respectively.