Four local companies are bidding to supply 400 vehicles that will replace high-powered automobiles currently in use by government officials, pursuant to a directive issued by the Office of the Prime Minister which barred officials from using high-powered field vehicles while traveling within city limits.
This National Competitive bid, which came three months after the introduction of the directive, has attracted five local vehicle assemblers.
This particular directive targets bringing equitable distribution of vehicles used by government officials. It puts a restriction on officials using sports utility vehicles (SUVs) such as Nissan Pajeros as well as Toyota Prados and V8s inside Addis Ababa.
According to the directive, eight cylinder vehicles would be reserved for ministers, state ministers, speakers and their deputies, presidents and vice presidents of federal courts, commissioners and deputy commissioners whereas six and four cylinder vehicles would be used by directors for field use.
Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation the Ministry of Finance and Economic Cooperation is given the mandate to purchase the vehicles on behalf of the federal offices.
Public Procurement and Property Disposal Service (PPPDS), on behalf of the ministry, floated a bid for the 400 automobiles in three lots in accordance with horse power of the automobiles engine.
In this regard, bid comprises of Lot 1 with 1,600 CC vehicles; Lot 2 with 1,800CC and Lot 3 with 2,000CC vehicles.
In line with this, for Lot 1, which has 240 vehicles, four bidders— Mesfin Industrial Engineering, Belay Ab Motors, Abay Technic and Marathon Motors— are competing to win the supply contract; whereas, for Lot 2, with its 110 vehicles only Belay Ab and Abay has shown interest. Moreover for Lot 3, having 50 vehicles, Marathon was joined by Belay Ab and Abay.
The bid opening which was held on January 10, 2018 left only one local bidder behind. The fifth bidder, Yangfan Motors was pronounced as a late bidder.
The aforementioned bidders upon the submission of their technical proposal will be evaluated and those successful will pass through to the financial evaluation stages.
In accordance with the later directive on the purchase of cost-effective vehicles, the vehicles will exclusively be procured from the local assemblers.
So far, it was foreign companies which dominated the automobile market specifically when it comes to supplying cars for federal offices. In this regard, since 2012, PPPDS purchased only 537 vehicles from local assemblers.
Following this latest purchase, MoFEC is expected to allocate the vehicles to federal public offices. Once the purchase is concluded, high-powered vehicles will only be reserved for field trips.
Officials affected by the directive include ministers, state ministers, speakers and their deputies of both houses of parliament, presidents and vice presidents of federal courts, commissioners and deputy commissioners as well as directors.
The directive went into effect August 2017, and gives a grace period to federal offices to continue using high-powered vehicles in Addis Ababa up until a time when they are in possession of locally-assembled automobiles.
It is to be recalled that the directive in addition to the procurement of the vehicles from local market, also instructed government offices to coordinate the utilization of vehicles and to allocate vehicles appropriately.
When it comes to using other automobiles in the city, the directive put a cap on the amount of gas. Therefore, officials can use only up to 135 liters of benzene per month, with offices required to apply for special permit in cases of more gas. The ministry will then decide based on the merit of each request, reads the directive.
