Consulting firm threatens to take dispute over airport project to the federal level

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — PIOA Consulting is threatening to take its concerns to the federal level if Chief Procurement Officer, Dr. Oreta M. Crichton, does not provide specific information pertaining to the procurement process and awarding of a “construction management service” contract for one of the airport projects to Silva Group, a new local company in the construction industry.

PIOA’s concerns and specific information it seeks, was outlined in a Feb. 20th “procurement dispute letter” to Crichton over the awarding to Silva Group the “Pago Pago International Airport Apron Rehabilitation — Construction Management Services — Stages 2 to 4” project.

Responding to Samoa News questions, Crichton said late Friday afternoon that the Procurement Office — in accordance with procurement administrative policies — has 30 working days to respond. “PIOA has been made aware of this timeline. Procurement will issue a decision letter within 30 working days,” said Crichton.

As to the specific information requested, Crichton explained that the Procurement Office is in direct communication with PIOA’s counsel, and will be releasing portions of the requested information.

“As PIOA acknowledged in their letter, certain information is ALWAYS protected from disclosure by the administrative rules,” she explained; and therefore, the Procurement Office, CANNOT, by law, release certain information without the permission of the other bidders.

“This administrative rule is designed to allow companies and members of the public to freely and fairly compete for ASG projects, without concern over unfair competitive practices or release of trade secrets,” she explained.

Commerce Department director, Keniseli Lafaele, in response to Samoa News inquiries, said PIOA Consulting is a sole proprietorship, owned by Leleagaatutuila Spitzenberg, while the Silva Group is a local corporation whose incorporators are Gloria Ausage, Vitale Savea, and Sia Savea — all US citizens.

Asked about what Silva’s total bid proposal for the project was, and when the project was awarded to Silva, Crichton reiterated that under procurement administrative rules, Procurement Office “cannot, by law, release protected bid information [and] this includes information related to PIOA’s own bid.” She said cost of the project is part of the negotiations being conducted by the Dept. of Port Administration.

When asked why Silva was chosen for the project, Crichton first explained that an appointed Source Evaluation Board (SEB) evaluates all accepted bids based on a range of criteria, and the necessary qualifications for the project were made widely available.

Additionally, the SEB is tasked with reviewing all accepted Request For Qualifications (RFQs) proposals against the stated qualifications, and making a recommendation.

“Frequently, the board reviews submissions from multiple highly qualified applicants,” she said, adding that six proposals were received by the closing date/time. “Unfortunately, the Board could only recommend these phases of the project to one company out of several excellent proposals.”

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.

Samoa News learned over the weekend that another local company had filed a dispute with Procurement Office because their proposal was not included in the SEB selection process. Details of that dispute weren’t available at press time but it's understood that this particular company is the construction management services contractor for three other airport projects.

When asked to identify by name the appointed SEB members, Crichton responded, “to protect the privacy of our board members, and to ensure that they are not individually targeted by any displeased applicant, Procurement Office does not wish to release individual names.

However, Procurement Office and the sponsoring department (Port Administration for this project) work together to ensure that Request For Proposals (RFP) and RFQs “are evaluated by a highly qualified, rotating and diverse SEB. These members are uniquely qualified to understand the technical and logistical needs of such a complex and essential project.”

She pointed out that Procurement Office works diligently to ensure that all companies have access to a fair, transparent, and open bidding and qualifications process. She said projects are widely publicized, and staff are available throughout the week to answer any questions companies may have.

According to her, the Procurement Office “is currently responding to several disputes filed by PIOA, and we regret that they are displeased with the standard procurement process detailed in the administrative rules.”

“We are hopeful that we will reach a positive resolution that ensures that all bidders fully understand the process,” she said. “We are committed to working with a range of companies, as well as the FAA and Port Administration to ensure that the Airport Apron project is a success.”

Responding to Samoa News inquiries, FAA spokesman Ian Gregor explained that it’s the “airport, not the FAA, [that] is responsible for meeting all procurement requirements. The airport also establishes, enforces, and administers contracts and is responsible for all contractual matters.”

“The FAA is not a part to contracts that an airport enters into with federal Airport Improvement Program (AIP) money,” which is funding this project, said Gregor last Thursday. He confirmed that FAA is funding the entire Apron Rehabilitation project including the Construction Management Services - which he explained is a contractor that provides “general project oversight, quality assurance, submittal review, change order review, and reporting to the owner”.

He added that a contractor for Construction Management Services is not required to post a performance bond “because they aren’t doing any physical work on the project.”

Asked if the FAA has received any information from American Samoa that the project contract is awarded to Silva Group, Gregor responded, “No official notification or executed contract has been sent to the FAA.”

DISPUTE LETTER

In its Feb. 20th “procurement dispute letter”, PIOA claimed that awarding the contract to Silva and rejecting PIOA’s proposal “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.

The company requested that the award should be set aside for two reasons:

•     PIOA is informed and believes that Procurement Office “is showing undue favor to Silva” in violation of procurement policy and regulation.

•     Procurement Office failed to provide any basis for its rejection of PIOA’s bid proposal, leading PIOA to believe that Procurement Office “failed to adequately review PIOA’s response in good faith” as required by local law and regulation.

“To facilitate fair review of and supplementation of this dispute, PIOA requests that Procurement Office provide “the entire contract file” for the RFQs for this project and award, including but not limited to the documents cited in provision of the American Samoa Administrative Code.

PIOA further requests other documents, such as all other Offerers Qualification Proposals; minutes of the meetings of the SEB as well as SEB members’ individual scoring regarding each proposal, and SEB members recommendation of award.

According to PIOA, it had initially made formal request “to release this public information” in a Feb. 11th letter, but “have so far been ignored”.

While this dispute is under review, PIOA urged Procurement Office to stay any award or execution of contract with Silva in order to avoid further exposure due to claims of PIOA and of Silva for liquidated damages or other breach of contract claims.

According to the dispute letter, PIOA’s aim is to provide an avenue:

•     for Procurement Office “to demonstrate that a fair and unbiased decision was rendered by an independent” SEB;

•     that Silva was the most qualified out of all the companies that submitted proposals for this project; and

•     that the award to Silva was in accordance with procurement regulations.

PIOA said it understands that this is an FAA funded project and therefore all federal rules and regulations pertaining to its award must be adhered to.

In closing, PIOA issued a written warning — if Procurement Office “continues to ignore our request to provide the requested documents in order to demonstrate that a fair and transparent procurement process was followed, PIOA Consulting intends to elevate this to the federal level.”

Samoa News points out that Silva Group is the contractor for the Nu’uuli Coconut Point Road Project which broke ground earlier this year on Jan. 30 with a price tag of over $891,000.