Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Elec­tric­i­ty Com­mis­sion (T&TEC) has won a le­gal chal­lenge over the pro­cure­ment process it used for an up­grade to its video sur­veil­lance sys­tem.

In a de­ci­sion de­liv­ered on Wednes­day, a three-mem­ber pan­el ap­point­ed by the Of­fice of Pro­cure­ment Reg­u­la­tion dis­missed the chal­lenge brought by Class One Sys­tems Lim­it­ed against the State-owned util­i­ty.

In its chal­lenge, the com­pa­ny con­tend­ed that T&TEC breached the pro­vi­sions of the Pub­lic Pro­cure­ment and Dis­pos­al of Pub­lic Prop­er­ty Act 2015 and its as­so­ci­at­ed reg­u­la­tions when it re­ject­ed the com­pa­ny’s bid for the con­tract on the ba­sis that it had not been pre-qual­i­fied.

The com­pa­ny claimed it had a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion that it would have been al­lowed to com­pete in the ten­der­ing process be­cause it was per­mit­ted to sub­mit a bid and at­tend site vis­its.

T&TEC, through its at­tor­neys led by Se­nior Coun­sel Anand Ram­lo­gan of Free­dom Law Cham­bers, de­nied any wrong­do­ing, main­tain­ing that it com­plied with the leg­is­la­tion and reg­u­la­tions.

In its rul­ing, the pan­el said it could not con­sid­er whether T&TEC act­ed un­law­ful­ly by not pre-qual­i­fy­ing the com­pa­ny be­cause of the com­pa­ny’s de­lay in rais­ing the is­sue.

“This in­ac­tion was fa­tal to the Of­fice hav­ing any ju­ris­dic­tion to con­sid­er the Re­spon­dent’s ac­tions and/or de­ci­sions in re­la­tion to pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion or the terms of pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion and these grounds for re­view must fail,” the pan­el stat­ed.

The pan­el al­so agreed with T&TEC that pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion was manda­to­ry and that the com­mis­sion did not cre­ate a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion by ac­cept­ing the com­pa­ny’s bid de­spite it not be­ing pre-qual­i­fied.

“The Hear­ing Pan­el, how­ev­er, con­clud­ed that the con­tents of the ten­der doc­u­ments, more specif­i­cal­ly the eval­u­a­tion method­ol­o­gy, negat­ed the Ap­pli­cant’s ar­gu­ment of a le­git­i­mate ex­pec­ta­tion,” it said.

The pan­el fur­ther ruled that T&TEC was not re­quired to seek fur­ther sub­mis­sions from the com­pa­ny re­gard­ing its lack of pre-qual­i­fi­ca­tion, as it had failed to sat­is­fy the pre­con­di­tions for its bid to be con­sid­ered.

It al­so found no ev­i­dence that T&TEC treat­ed the com­pa­nies that sub­mit­ted bids un­equal­ly.

Based on its de­ci­sion, the pan­el lift­ed the sus­pen­sion of the pro­cure­ment process that had been im­posed af­ter the com­pa­ny filed its chal­lenge.

T&TEC was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by at­tor­neys Aasha Ram­lal and Aria Khan, while Kyle Jack­man ap­peared for Class One Sys­tems Lim­it­ed.