An Appeals Board has rejected an appeal over the adjudication of tenders for the outsourcing of IT courses by Mcast, finding that the adjudicating board did not act in bad faith.

The Appeals Board, however, rapped the adjudication board members for failing to analyse all the tender document provisions before proceeding with the assessment of offers and for not knowing that the minimum pass mark for a company to be eligible for a contract was 70, not 50 percent.

The appeal was made by Computer Domain Ltd, which had insisted that it should have been the only company to be awarded the contract after having been the only one to exceed the 70 percent threshold set in the tender requirements.

It argued that the board was wrong to have prepared a second report where points were increased and as a result all companies which submitted a bid became eligible for contracts.

During the appeal hearings it was argued that this was a genuine mistake and the points of all bidding companies had been increased proportionately.

The Appeals Board said it had noted the failure of all the Adjudication Board members to analyse all the tender document provisions before proceeding with the assessment of offers.

“This Board cannot but exclaim its amazement in this regard, questioning in the process, as to how could have the Adjudication Board worked on the assumption that the pass mark was set at 50% of the total score when the Tender document had fixed a threshold of 70%! The PCAB cannot condone such unprofessional conduct no matter what excuses are brought about. The Board cannot but argue that had all the Adjudication Board members properly carried out the work they were entrusted with carrying out in the first place this objection would, in all probability, have not been raised,” the appeals board said.

It added that it was concerned by the fact that as has been repeatedly stated under oath by the Chairman of the Adjudication Board, an entire report was superseded by another report without either a hard or, at least, a soft copy of the original report being retained, showing particular amateurish traits in the Adjudication Board modus operandi.

The Appeals Board also noted the ‘amateurish way’ the relative tender document was prepared.