How to legally cheat at a contract tender

So a contract is put out to tender.

Halfway decent research would show that it would take =N=1,000,000.00 to complete the project to at least minimum standards.

You know this. You know this.

Knowing this, you present a bid to the government saying you can complete the project for just =N=7,500.00

This is a ridiculous bid.

The government knows (or should know) that this is a ridiculous bid.

The media knows (or should know) that this is a ridiculous bid.

The citizenry, oddly enough, do not know, because the government, the bidders, the media and every other entity/agency/individual with access to (or the responsibility to seek access to) the real facts and research are unfortunately complicit in the environment of misinformation and disinformation in which the citizenry are compelled to live.

However, the ridiculous bidder has strong "advocates" within the government and/or the broader political class and among the moguls in the upper levels of the plutocratic business class. In some cases, these advocates in government and business have vested equity/financial interests in the consortia making the bids. In other cases, quid pro quos and other debts/obligations are in play.

The bid is accepted.

Note that one of the reasons the bid must be ridiculously low is the government cannot openly pick a higher bid (not without the complicated steps of explaining why the "core investor" or "technical partner" or whatever is unsuitable).

The project begins ....

.... and over the next several years (or decades) the winning bidder is paid far more than what it bid, because the cost of the project (even without the ancilliary inefficiencies, delays, contract inflations and kickbacks) was ALWAYS going to be higher than what they bid.

It is simply not possible to complete the project for what it was bid, and rather than penalize the contractor for their stupid/ridiculous/unprofessional/unrealistic bid by making them eat the difference between the true cost and what they bid, we just agree to keep paying them whatever it is they ask us to pay.

If we don't pay, they abandon work, and we have an uncompleted project sitting there. After a few years (and the decay of whatever work has been done), we put another contract out to tender.

Oh, just so you know:

Answering questions from newsmen shortly after inspecting the dredging work going on at the Baro end of the river Niger in Niger state, immediate past transport minister, Alhaji Ibrahim Isa Bio, said before the dredging of the river commenced, it was estimated that only about 900,000 cubic metres of sand would be evacuated during the dredging of LOT 5 which covers Baro in Niger state to Jamata bridge near Koton-Karfe in Kogi state.

Alhaji Bio said it has now been discovered after the work had started in earnest, that the volume of sand to be evacuated from that LOT is between 6 million and 7 million cubic metres. He however assured that the increase in the volume of sand to be evacuated from the river will not affect the dredging work.

Read it for yourself here.

The project to dredge the Niger from Kwara State down to Bayelsa State has been divided into lots, and the above quote references just one lot (LOT 5), not for the whole dredging project.

Heaven knows what surprises await us when we move on to the other lots.

From less than a million to 7 million, a seven-fold increase. Until something is done to raise confidence in their projections, we cannot give any credence to the Environmental Impact Assessments they did for the River Niger dredging project. I am neither a civil nor environmental engineer, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that an accurate assessment of the volumes of sand you have to remove is crucial to making any kind of EIA.

The former minister did not say how much more we have to pay the contractors to move the extra sand. I do not believe for a second that they are undertaking seven times more work for the same pay ... unless their bid price was inflated to begin with.

Yes, I know this is speculation on my part, but you can't blame me. It is not like the media have done any follow-up stories to fill in the blanks left by the former minister. For some reason they have poured all their energy into stalking Turai Yar'Adua ....