A feisty fight has broken out among several local firms over tenders for the provision of consultancy services under the $160.68m (about Shs592.8 billion) National Oilseeds Project.

This publication understands that some of the firms accuse officials in the project’s implementation unit of involvement in several shenanigans, including falsification of bid documents, shortlisting unqualified firms, sneaking in bid forms for firms that had not been part of the initial stages of the procurement process, and bending procurement rules in favour of some of the bidders. They poked holes in the technical evaluation process, claiming that inexperienced firms had actually been scored very highly.

“The process of awarding marks in the technical proposal evaluation needs to be reviewed as some bidders who did not have experience in implementation of agricultural development projects (as required in the call for proposals) were suspiciously awarded very high marks more than 80 percent. This area should be revisited and be redone by an impartial committee,” the petitioners demanded.

They further alleged that some of the officials who were involved in the procurement processes have been reaching out to interested parties demanding for cash in order to be awarded tenders under the project. The project is funded by International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the government of Uganda.

Some of the petitioners have called for the procurement process to be brought to a halt, while others are calling for it to be reviewed.

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