By Mary Poni
The government through the Ministry of Petroleum has awarded and contracted three firms to conduct comprehensive environmental audit at the country’s oil fields.
The award of the contract for the environmental audit is a welcome news which is long overdue as communities around the oil fields have often complained of oil pollution posing dangerous health risk to the livelihoods of the locals and livestock.
Envag Associates, Panloy and SGS companies limited are audit firms being entrusted by the government and expected to conduct environmental audit on oil field port which are DPOC, GPOC and SPOC.
The companies have been asked to do and complete a deliverable work within 90 days from the date of commencement of the work.
The Minister of Petroleum, Puot Kang Chuol announced to the media yesterday that the three companies consisting of Envag Associates, Panloy and SGS were award the contracts after they won the bidding procedures.
“We have come to the end of phase one it had been a very long journey and there has been a lot of up and down in the process” he said.
He stated that the members of the committee have undergone serious intimidation from those who think this thing is not to be done, adding that to reach to the stage of today was also very difficult because the committee was working independently.
“We told them do the technical proposal and the commercial bid and number them from 1-6 and those were the companies that turned in to getting the proposals” he noted.
“Whatever you have done is what we are taking, in that process some companies felt even if they don’t pass because they have already started making connections they should be made number one but there are criterias set” he added.
Kang disclosed that the ministry was only issuing to numbers from 1, 2 and 3 and anybody who didn’t get a number will not get the contract.
The Petroleum minister stated that the ministry of Petroleum started the environmental audit by developing the scope of work for the audit and that was the first step because work cannot start if the auditors don’t know what they will achieve out of it.
“When I came to the ministry I got the process was already started but what I only did was to change the committee because it was only made up of the ministry of petroleum” he stated.
The minister stressed that for the project to be championed by everybody, he had to change the committee in which he did and it’s the right thing to do because this is about the life of the people of this country.
“We must involve others so that they help guiding us through the process” he asserted.
“These are the institutions that took up the process in ministerial order that that was reappointed, committee for transparency includes the committee from the ministry of petroleum, ministry of environment, National Petroleum and Gas Commission, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Justice, Civil Society and National Security” he hinted.
Kang said the prequalification’s phase one was made globally to allow companies to participate internationally.
“The shortlisted companies were invited for the tender in which eleven companies are to summit their offers, the submission was requested into proposal, technical proposal were the companies were requested to show their technical capabilities and the commercial proposal where they were given the quotation for their institution for doing their work and that will show what you do, your experience and what you have done elsewhere and how much do you want to do the work’ he explained.
However the minister said only six companies out of expected eleven submitted their offers in a sealed envelopes and beat document which was witnessed in an exercise attended by various stakeholders.
The evaluation of the offers was audited by the audit committee and chose the best offers. When they evaluated they put one two three fro, the commercial proposal and again from the technical.
“Once it was submitted to me, my first interest was at the technical part. When we verify some people went skyrocketing and others are blue verified” Kang said.
He stated that they won’t give one company two fields but rather each company will have to go with one oil field distributed to them those are; DPOC GPOC and SPOC.