Cabinet heats up over Kerawalapitiya LNG plant

Wednesday, 20 June 2018 00:00 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

Decides to appoint Cabinet Procurement Committee to revalue process
Minister comes under fire for presenting Cabinet paper to give project to Chinese company

A Cabinet meeting yesterday heated up when the Power and Renewable Energy Minister presented a Cabinet paper seeking approval to award the tender for a second LNG power plant to a Chinese company.

Subject Minister Ranjith Siyambalapitiya came in for severe criticism from his Cabinet colleagues for proposing to award the tender to the Consortium of GCL China Windforce and RenewGen to construct a 300 MW LNG Plant in Kerawalapitiya, ignoring the lowest bidder Lakdanavi Ltd.

Following a heated discussion over the issue, the Cabinet decided to appoint a Cabinet Procurement Committee to re-evaluate the process, a senior Cabinet Minister told the Daily FT.

The committee is required to make recommendations within two weeks to the Cabinet, Daily FT learnt.

The procurement process, which was riddled with controversy from the beginning, came to a close with a Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee (CAPC) recommendation to award the tender to Lakdanavi. However, this was appealed by the GCL China Consortium through the Procurement Appeals Board (PAB). The PAB subsequently overturned the CAPC recommendation to award the tender to Lakdanavi based on a confidential letter written by the Power and Renewable Energy Ministry Secretary Dr. B.M.S. Batagoda. The Cabinet paper presented yesterday recommended awarding the tender to the GCL China Consortium based on the PAB recommendation.