By our staff reporter
The Office of the Public Private Partnership Department (PPP D) of the Ministry of Finance (MoF) issues another round of call for requests for the requalification (RFQ) for the Integrated Diagnostic Center (IDC) PPP project owing to the initial issuance not attracting qualified participants.
It is well known that the government has designed PPP schemes as one of the instruments to pave way for the country development to ease the social and economic challenges besides projects that are carried out by the government and private sectors separately.
In order to attain the goals it can be recalled that the relevant office, PPP D, was established under MoF with potential project areas being selected including health and energy infrastructures.
On the expression of interest (EOI) that was issued 14 months ago it was stated that the government had attained remarkable success in the health care system. “However, epidemiologic shift and the growing demand for quality and affordable curative health service have remained elusive in the past; hence government remains committed to its objective of increasing access to quality, cost effective, and timely diagnostic services for all citizens through the exploration of incentive service delivery models like PPP,” the department acknowledged.
The EOI announcement that targeted to check market soundness of IDC PPP project planned to attract private companies or consortiums which were then followed an RFQ which was issued a year ago.
However in the announcement issued on Thursday October 12, PPP D stated that the first RFQ has been annulled because of lack of qualified participants.
“Because of lack of qualified bidders that fulfills the all the requirements of the RFQ in the evaluation process, the PPP-DG had canceled the bid process,” it disclosed, adding, “Now, PPP-D has re-launched this announcement of RFQ for IDC PPP project.”
The PPP project envisions the development of integrated diagnostic center to provide quality and uninterrupted laboratory, pathology, and imaging services in Addis Ababa with some modification of the scope of the project.
The IDC will be based at St. Peter’s Specialized Hospital in Addis Ababa to serve clients in need of diagnostic services.
The announcement stated that PPP-D intends to pre-qualify prospective bidders with the requisite experience, expertise, and financial resources to rapidly deliver the IDC via PPP modality which is the first phase of the procurement (private party selection) process that followed by request for proposal (RFP) for only pre-qualified bidders.
New interested applicants shall get the documents at 5,500 birr, while those who were involved in the previous announcement shall get the documents at 500 birr charge.
The announcement stated that bidders may participate in the prequalification process severally or in consortia, “international bidders are encouraged to participate in consortia with local private partners.”
The RFQ application is expected to be delivered in one month period.
As per the EOI that was issued July last year, the project will be implemented for 10 years and is expected to bring new capacities, technologies, skills and efficiencies.
After massive study and legal document development through MoF, the government enacted the PPP 1076/2018 proclamation, which has been amended last budget year mainly to allow PPP on direct negotiation manner besides competitive bid format, makes it formalized for private sector involvement through public projects for the benefit of both sides. Under the PPP; efficiency on project handling, innovation, and knowledge transfer and using alternative financing to reduce government project financing has been stated as the pillars.
About 20 projects have been identified to be developed under PPP from over 100 proposals, while from the selected project some shall not be executed under PPP as per the recommendation that came from detailed studies. Roads, energy, housing, and health are included on the selected projects.
Except in some special cases, the PPP project threshold is USD 50 million and above.
As per the government’s projection, 25 percent of all projects will be covered by PPP. In the ten year development plan the government has targeted to conduct huge projects through PPP.
Recently the government has also passed a decision to give convertibility guarantee for projects carried out by PPP modality. The move is targeted to boost investors’ confidence to engage on huge projects that the country is badly needed.
In the past budget year, four PPP projects were targeted to be floated and so far on a special condition through the government to government (G2G) approach, two energy projects are under negotiations.
