A group of officials at Bangladesh Rural Electrification Board (BREB) have designed a tender to procure tech equipment from single source from CISCO violating procurement rules.

The state-owned company floated tender for the procurement of supply, installation and commissioning the networking devices and LAN/VPN establishment for ICBS of 37 Palli Bidyut Samity(PBSs). The qualification criteria of the tender is designed in favour of Oculin Tech, the partner of CISCO, original equipment manufacturer.

The Mirror Asia has seen a copy of the procurement tender and verified the issue. In experience criteria, BREB authorities mentioned that the tenderers shall have a minimum number of years in general experience in the role of contractor or subcontractor and management contractor as specified in the TDS.
“specific experience as a contractor or subcontractor that are similar to the proposed plant and services in at least in number of contract(s) and of a minimum value over the period, as specified in TDS,” read the document.

This baisness in the specifications and controlling the qualifications criteria missed the fair competition and violation of public procurement rules of Bangladesh.

Meanwhile, officials related to the project mentioned that a group of BREB officials tried to gain personal benefit through procuring equipments from single source that will expense high budget from the public fund.
“BREB senior system analyst Mizanur Rahman Siddiki has designed the tender to gain benefits from Oculin Tech violating the public procurement rules,” says a project officials requesting not to be named.

BREB additional chief engineer KM Nayem Khan is convening the specification and projection committee. TMA tried to reach him over phone for comment. However, the number found not reachable.