KPP orders re-evaluation of the €2.2 million water supply tender, preliminary winner disqualified

The Public Procurement Commission (KPP) has ordered a re-evaluation of the procedure for building the water supply system in the villages of Urake-Kotodesh-Katjel, in Prrenjas Municipality, after a complaint by one of the participating operators.

The tender, with a limit fund of 202.4 million lek excluding VAT, or about €2.2 million, was conducted by the Pogradec Regional Water Supply and Sewerage Company. KPP decided to partially uphold the complaint and asked the contracting authority to re-evaluate the procedure, disqualifying the economic operator previously declared the preliminary winner.

The procedure was published on 26 May 2026 and the tender was held on 22 June. According to the KPP decision, the complaining operator had bid 185.03 million lek excluding VAT and received 271.5 points, while the operator declared the preliminary winner had bid 195.34 million lek and received 274.5 points. The preliminary winner was announced on 16 July.

On 21 July, the complaining operator turned to KPP, contesting both the scoring of its technical proposal and the qualification of the operator declared the preliminary winner. The complaint had previously been rejected by the contracting authority. One of the main claims concerned the technical criterion of having an HDD machine/rig for horizontal directional drilling. The tender documents expressly required the economic operator to have this equipment available, which, according to the contracting authority’s reasoning, was necessary for the micro-tunnelling drilling.

Examining the documentation of the operator declared the preliminary winner, KPP found that one of the lease contracts was not in the form required by the tender criteria, while the declared equipment was a drilling rig and not an HDD rig for horizontal directional drilling. For the other contract submitted as well, KPP found that the listed equipment consisted of different models of drilling rigs and “not an (HDD) rig for horizontal directional drilling as required by criterion 2.3.10”.

“KPP judges that the complainant’s claim for annulling the Bid Evaluation Commission’s decision regarding the qualification of the economic operator […] stands,” the decision states.

The Commission adds that the operator, “with the documentation submitted, does not prove that it has, in one of the required forms, ‘Machinery / (HDD) rig for horizontal directional drilling'”, thus failing to meet the relevant criterion. On another claim by the complainant, concerning the availability of a grader, KPP concluded that the documentation of the operator declared the preliminary winner met the tender requirements and that this claim “does not stand”.

Following the finding on the HDD rig, KPP decided not to examine the other claims about technical scoring and other machinery, arguing that the status of the operator declared the preliminary winner would change to that of a disqualified operator in the procedure.

In its decision of 28 September, KPP orders the contracting authority “to carry out a re-evaluation of the procurement procedure under complaint”, disqualifying the economic operator previously declared the preliminary winner, in accordance with the findings of the decision. /N.Maho