EAC in street light controversy

By Constantinos Psillides

ELECTRICITY Authority of Cyprus (EAC) is embroiled in yet another Auditor General probe, after his office received a complaint by a Chinese company saying that they were unjustly excluded from a €2 million tender to provide the authority with 13,000 LED street lights.

Jiangxi Machinery and Equipment Import/Export Corporation claims that EAC exhibited blatant favouritism when deciding to award the tender to JV CTC Automotive LTD & Argosy Trading company, since it allowed the company to alter its bid after the tender process was completed.

The Chinese company, acting through their legal advisers, the law office of former AKEL MP Aristophanis Georgiou, had resorted to the Tenders Review Authority (TRA), which ruled in 2014 in favour of the company. The TRA noted in its ruling that while the tender was invited in December 2013 and the bid submitting deadline was set for March 2014, EAC allowed CTC to alter its offer two months after the process was completed.

The company claims that CTC sent a letter to EAC after the deadline expired to inform them that the company making the LED lights they included in their bid would have a new model out by May. By altering their bid the company was able to deal with product specification issues that would otherwise prevent them from being a suitable option for EAC, as it was detailed in the tender terms.

Following the TRA ruling, the EAC decided not to award the tender to the runner-up – which was the Chinese company – but to scrap the process all together and invite a new tender. The company claims that the new tender specifications are tailored to serve the interests of CTC.

“This was a blatant attack on my client’s interests. The EAC should have awarded the contract to Jiangxi since CTC’s bid was deemed by the TRA to have violated the terms,” Georgiou told the Cyprus Mail, adding that he has resorted once again to the TRA to have the new tender process scrapped. The decision is pending.

EAC spokeswoman Christina Papadopoulou-Theofanidou told the Cyprus Mail that the semi-governmental organisation has always adhered to the rulings of the TRA board, thus inviting a new tender and rejecting CTC’s original bid.

The EAC believes it acted within the frame of the TRA ruling.

Andreas Hasapopoulos from the office of the Auditor General told the Cyprus Mail that the investigation is ongoing.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.