ASSESMENT AND MODIFICATION OF BID EVALUATION PROCESS IN ETHIOPIAN ROAD AUTHORITY ROAD CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS
Author/s
ELIAS NEZIF
Abstract
In construction industry, a bid evaluation system for selection of a qualified contractor to execute a road construction project is a complex procedure faced by clients and consultants. Achieving a value-based procurement approach is a challenge, as the Ethiopian Road Authority (ERA) bid evaluation, where it is limited to evaluate the competitive bids based on the low-bid award system only. We become interested to do a research in this area in order to examine and simplify the ERA bid evaluation process. In this article, the bid evaluation process used by ERA is assessed and a modified bid evaluation process is prepared. With respect with bid evaluation process advancement, it is better to review developed countries UK, Hong Kong, Australian and USA bid evaluation have been reviewed. Their qualification of contractors utilizes a long list of contractors for prequalification and bidding purposes. Therefore, it become appreciable to conduct a survey for ERA to prepare some standard or list of contractors for prequalification and compare to those countries’ practices of bid evaluation process. This study showed that ERA’s work bid evaluation process has some gaps and needs amendment. The ERA existing bid evaluation criteria and other bid evaluation criteria are collected together and are analyzed. We conducted by preparing a questionnaire and using statistical tool to analyze the data. Based on the study results of value-based evaluation clear, easy and standardized bid evaluation guide was developed. Results showed that technical and financial bid evaluation have equal weight on the selection of contractors. Weighting 50% technical evaluation was one of the research findings. The bid evaluation is done by converting both technical and financial evaluation to 50% each and summing up out of 100%where high scorer wins the bid. Furthermore, this paper recommends the existing ERA bid evaluation process could be to change newly proposed value-based evaluation which simplifies the process and also can be applied for other sector.