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Kogi State Government on Friday opened bidders conference for pre-qualified investors to undertake Public Private Partnership (PPP) projects in the state
Mr Bob Achanya, Director General, Kogi State Bureau of Public Private Partnership Procurement (BPPP), disclosed this at a meeting with prequalified investors in Lokoja.
He noted that the bidders’ conference which aligned with the international best practices was the first of its kind in the history of the state.
“Kogi State has started the BPPP implementation and we are having PPP procurement bid open to be followed by technical and financial proposals in fortnight
“We have previously received Expression of Interest (EOI) from investors through advertisement, and opened a bid which allows us to prequalified companies that are interested in those projects.
“The projects include Confluence Beach Hotel, Lokoja Mega Bus Terminal, Mega World Class Business Mall, Consolidated Billings, Environmental Revenue Levy, Sanitary Inspection of Premises, among others.
“Today, the BPPP office is engaging the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, which by its mandate procure every PPP in the state, we had earlier received seven PPP request of no objection from the ministry.
“After review, we had only three out of the seven with no objection for advertisement while others go through the formal conventional procurement process,” Achaya said.
The director named the three categories of bidding as consolidated billings, sanitary inspection of premises and environmental revenue levy, adding that a bid fee was N350, 000 per investor.
“This bidders conference is also to intimate the bidders with issues arising, challenges, prospects and stages that will lead to the final close of the deal.
“The close of the deal is concluding a business with private sector proponents who will manage and operate whatever scheme agreed upon.
“We are doing this today because the investors have been prequalified and we are now discussing with them on how fast we want them to submit the technical and financial proposals.
This is what the bidding conference seeks to achieve and I think we have achieved that because the bid fee was unanimously agreed upon by the bidders.
It was agreed that within two weeks the investors will submit the technical and financial proposals which will be followed by formalities.
One of the investors, Mr Suleiman Babanawa, told NAN that Kogi Government deserved commendation on the issue of BPPP for given every investor a level playing ground.
“Initially, I was not interested because I thought it was going to be business as usual that those projects had already been awarded before advertising them.
“We are however proved wrong because we have been going through the normal process since we applied, we are happy that confidence is being restored which is good for Kogi State.
Mr Abolaji Femi, Desk Officer, Ministry of Environment, told NAN that the bidding process has been smooth due to the cooperation of the investors coupled with commitment of the state government.
NAN reports that ten companies were prequalified by BPPP for the bidding but only seven were present at the bidders conference.
Credits: Stephen Adeleye | NAN
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