Latvia’s Procurement Monitoring Bureau (IUB) has prohibited the signing of a contract in the EUR 35 million worth University of Latvia House of Letters construction procurement, according to information from IUB homepage.
On 10 January construction company LLC Merks submitted a complaint in regards to the LU House of Letters construction project’s development, supervision and construction procurement.
The commission’s decision prohibits the client – LU – from continuing the procurement procedure, sign a procurement contract in the procedure and cancel the commission’s decision in regards to results of the candidate selection process.
IUB has also asked LU to prevent violations previously uncovered by the commission and report success within 20 days to IUB and all participating parties.
In accordance with the Public Procurements Law, this decision can be appealed at the Administrative District Court within one month’s time.
As reported, this procurement was organized again at the end of 2019, and its contract price was set at EUR 35 million, which is EUR 2 million more when compared to the first procurement in 2018.
Offers for participation in the procurement procedure were allowed to be submitted until 9 December.
The construction project of the LU House of Letters was initially announced in spring 2018. Even then organizers tried to determine the winner of the procurement through negotiations. The initial planned contract price was EUR 33 million.
The first stage of the procurement was open and seven companies in total had applied for participation. Fewer companies made it to the second stage, but this was not publicly reported. Initial offers were far too high, so the university decided instead to review the project, which quickly followed up with new offers.
In July 2019 vice-rector of the University of Latvia for infrastructure development matters Edīte Megne said the university hopes to determine a winner in the coming weeks. However, in September, then the acting rector of the university Gvido Straube announced that the first procurement has been put on hold and restarted, and that a new procurement commission would be composed soon.
Straube first mentioned the House of Letters when answering the question about possible dishonest practices in construction procurements for the university’s needs. «These may be internal concerns about honesty and related to existing problems, which may have already affected LU. The procurement tender for the construction of the House of Letters has been put on hold. The university’s management had decided to start over a week ago,» said Straube.
Megne explained at the time that LU actively works on reviewing procurement criteria to expand the range of potential contenders. She also stressed that LU has a plan to sign a contract for designing and construction work by May or June 2020. The university also plans to commission the building in May 2023.
LU Academic Centre’s House of Letters construction procedure may be related to a criminal process on bribery investigated by the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB). As part of this criminal case KNAB had detained then the vice-rector of LU Baiba Broka, who later left her post.
