Extreme Complaints Drove the Bid to the Exception

Extreme Complaints Drove the Bid to the Exception
By: Hacer Boyacioğlu
Radikal Volume 17, Number 6143, 20 August 2013, pages 22-23

The bid for the Sincan-Ankara-Kayaş railway line was cancelled and will be exempted from the Bidding Law after firms used that law to enter complaints against each other.

In a recent meeting State Railways General Director Süleyman Karaman, when discussing the bidding on Capital Rail, stated that, the process "turned like a top."

The Turkish State Railway Authority (TCDD) chose a rare precautionary method to speed the bidding on the half-a-billion lira Sincan-Ankara-Kayaş railway line project after all of the firms bidding entered complaints against each other. Seventeen firms entered proposals for the bidding which opened last year and four of them were found to be qualified. It was at this point that a fury of complaints began. Firms participating in the bidding process began to enter complaints against each other. After large firms such as Makyol-Cengiz, Gülermak-Kolin, Porr Bau and Comsa Sa-Seza-Açılım used the complaints process nine times, the bidding was cancelled. The State Railway Authority will initiate the bidding again. Yes, this time with a check on complaints and with foreign funding. With a foreign funding source the project bidding will be exempted from the Public Bidding Law.

Everyone Ran to the KIK
The Sincan-Ankara-Kayaş railway line project, known as Capital Rail, was opened for bidding last year on 25 April. Gülermak-Kolin was chosen as the winning bid and Porr Bau GmbH was the runner up bidder. This decision initiated serious objections that continued over a years time. Firstly Porr Bau Gmgh objected and claimed that Gülermak-Kolin should have been removed from the bidding process; the committee rejected this objection. Immediately thereafter Öz Aras Intekar Yapı and afterward Comsa Sa-Açılım-Seza Construction complained that the winning firm at Porr Bau should be banned from the bidding process.The Public Bidding Committee (KIK) decided that the complainant Comsa Sa-Açılım-Seza should be removed from the bidding process, but that Makyol-Cengiz would be free to continue.

The committee re-evaluated the proposals on August 10 and again chose the Gülermak-Kolin bid to qualify as the winning bid. Before this decision was made 6 of the firms had applied for their competing companies to be excluded from bidding. Following each of the decisions made by the KIK the relevant firms had opened lawsuits relating to the decisions. The KIK as well had started counter legal action against a number of the firms involved. By April 3 the KIK made the decision to cancel the entire bidding process. By this time the TCDD had already taken the decision to finance the project using the foreign funding model. The TCDD stated that “This time financing from the European Investment Bank will be used. It will be a quicker and shorter process than that of the complaint-driven model.”