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Procurement cancels airport bid intended to be awarded to Silva

Psgo Pago International Airport sign
Offers no explanation
fili@samoanews.com

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Chief Procurement Officer, Dr. Oreta M. Crichton has cancelled the solicitation bid for the “construction management service” contract for one of the airport projects intended to be awarded to Silva Group, a new local company in the construction industry.

However, there is no explanation as to why the solicitation has been cancelled and Crichton has not responded to Samoa News email questions sent on Monday this week.

Crichton had issued a notice of intent to award Silva Group the “Pago Pago International Airport Apron Rehabilitation — Construction Management Services — Stages 2 to 4” project.

However, PIOA Consulting in an Feb. 20th letter filed a “procurement dispute letter” over the awarding of the contract, which PIOA claimed that by awarding the contract to Silva and rejecting PIOA’s proposal, it “violates procurement requirements” under the American Samoa Administrative Code and other applicable provisions of Procurement rules under local law as well as federal procurement law.  (See Samoa News edition Mar. 11th for details).

In an Apr. 26th letter to “All Bidders”, Crichton announced the “Cancellation of Solicitation” for this project as it “will be rebid at a later time”. She didn’t give any written explanation behind the cancellation, except saying that ASG “appreciates the participation of all contractors in this solicitation an regrets the cancellation.”

Prior to canceling the solicitation, Crichton had responded to PIOA’s dispute letter in an Apr. 3rd letter saying that the decision was final and that “it has been determined that Silva Group is qualified to perform the project requirements based on the Evaluation Criteria and Basis for Selection contained in the Request for Qualifications document.”

ASG officials explained to Samoa News over the weekend that the Notice issued early this year to Silva Group was the "intent to award" based on the recommendations of the ASG Source Evaluation Board (SEB). The officials says that the next step was the negotiations by the owner of the project — which is Port Administration — with viable companies and the final review by the chief procurement officer.

The "AWARD" letter was never issued, according to the officials, who didn’t have information on why the solicitation for this project was cancelled.

It remains unclear as to how many companies submitted bids for this federally funded project and how many of them filed a dispute claim — besides PIOA.

Samoa News understands that other companies who submitted bid proposals include AECOM — which currently has two projects with the airport; and BECCA — which carried out the design of the airport Apron Rehabilitation Project and had designed the service wharf at the Port of Pago Pago.