NRC screens 700 companies for N12bn railway projects

The Nigerian Railway Corporation has commenced screening for about 700 companies muscle for its N12bn capital projects procurement.

The NRC Director of procurement, Mr Benjamin Iloanusi revealed this during in Lagos during the exercise, saying the bidding process was purely for capital projects.

Iloanusi disclosed that over 700 companies bidding for the projects had submitted documents, adding that the agency had also trained its staff to ensure the smooth running of the process.

He noted that the process was not for the evaluation of validation but to see the documents submitted by the bidders

“We normally have a day before training for people that participate and they are often clear on what they need to do. The training was for the desk officers handling the documents. At least we started on time and it’s going on well because the processes are being followed. Over the years, we have managed to build guidelines and procedures, which is why you see the process going on smoothly.

“The process is going on well. No company has been disqualified yet until we go through their documents. If we find grounds to disqualify any, then we will do that.”

“As  I said before, we are not evaluating, we are not validating, we are merely looking at the documents they submitted in accordance with the eligibility criteria in the advert. So all that they are doing here is checking that the documents are complete. We can disqualify if the documents are not there.

“The flaws we saw last year gave room for the guidelines this year. If we see any flaws this year, we will work on them in the coming year. So at the end of this year, we will look at lessons learnt and work on the bottlenecks," he assured.