A tender bender in the Railway
General Manager, Sri Lanka Railways, Dr. Lalithsiri Gunaruwan and one of his subordinates, the Chief Engineer of Ways and Works, A.G. Mahanama, have been exposed in an ill-begotten attempt to manipulate a tender for new railway locomotives that runs into tens of millions of dollars.
Since The Sunday Leader wrote about some of the issues faced by the Technical Evaluation Committee (TEC) in an article on May 25, the TEC has, in an interim report, rejected five of the seven bids it received, thus narrowing the race down to one between two ‘horses.’
With the rejection of the four bids from Chinese companies and one bid from a North American firm, only the bids of former General Motors subsidiary, Electromotive Diesel (EMD) and RITES India, remain to be evaluated.
By the time the interim report was released to the Cabinet Appointed Procurement Committee (CAPC) in mid-June, it appears that gears were already in motion to either forcibly disqualify the pricey EMD, and hand the tender over to India’s RITES by default, or cause it to be scrapped.
The controversy is centred on the maximum weight permitted for each locomotive carriage. The final tender specifications approved by the CAPC after their last revision on April 24, stated that the maximum weight of each locomotive should be 111 metric tonnes.
Justifying
During the debate on deciding the maximum weight, and allowed ‘axle’ configurations, the Chief Engineer of Ways and Works at Sri Lanka Railways, A.G. Mahanama, who sits on the Technical Evaluation Committee, submitted a note dated April 17, outlining concerns he had and reasons that the maximum weight of a locomotive should be limited to 100.56 tonnes without any basis.
His note indicated that several rail bridges designed “before 1980″ were designed in a manner that they could not support a heavier locomotive than this, and justified his approving “as a special case” larger locomotive weights for one specific procurement. For the purchase of 15 locomotives currently in question however, he wrote to the CAPC that he “strongly recommend(s) not to deviate from” a maximum weight of the unfounded 100.56 tonnes when evaluating potential bids.
CAPC on its part, after evaluating Mahanama’s concerns along with other available evidence, such as the fact that locomotives – with an axle load of 20 tonnes were tendered out by SLR just last year to travel over these same bridges, and that the 2004 ‘SLR Manual of Special Rules’ fondly known amongst SLR engineers as the ‘bible,’ specifies that locomotives should have a maximum axle load of 20 tonnes, implying that locomotives with four axles should have a maximum weight of 80 tonnes, and those with six axles a maximum weight of 120 tonnes.
The locomotives that were to be procured in 2007 were for the transport of fuel around the country for the CPC. It also came to light that Indian locomotives weighing 112 tonnes were in use on these tracks and traversed daily over these contentious bridges. It was argued that if Mahanama’s concerns were to be taken seriously and posed a safety issue as he implied, then this previous purchase also was tainted, and further, these locomotives should not be allowed on the tracks for ’safety’ reasons.
After considering Mahanama’s submissions and consulting with other members of TEC, CAPC came to a decision and issued an amendment to their tender specifications on April 24, permitting bids for locomotives up to 111 tonnes in weight.
Chain of correspondence
This decision was communicated to all bidders on the same day, and was the last such amendment made before bidding closed on May 9. As of today, of the two bids that are being considered, that of former General Motors subsidiary EMD is for a locomotive with an axle load of 18.5 tonnes, and the bid by India’s RITES is for a locomotive with an axle load purported to be 19 tonnes.
Just a few days after the tender closed, on May 15, SLR General Manager (GMR) Dr. Lalithsiri Gunaruwan began a chain of internal correspondence with Ways and Works Chief Engineer and TEC member, A.G. Mahanama, inquiring about the “maximum weight” of a locomotive “permitted to operate” on the main rail line between Nawalapitiya and Badulla.
The GMR asked Mahanama to treat his request “as urgent and important.” The Chief Engineer thus replied on May 21. His letter stated that “SLR bridges aged over 30 years had been designed for an axle load of 16.76 tonnes. Therefore specified weight of six axles loco for SLR network shall be 100.56 tonnes,” – thus disregarding the facts given above.
He also recommended that a type of locomotive engine known as ‘CO-CO’ be introduced to operate between Nawalapitiya and Badulla “in the future.” The tender currently being evaluated has specifically forbidden ‘CO-CO’ locomotives, which are the same as the dreaded French Alstom engines imported in 1998 which have had an atrocious service record and presented a maintenance nightmare to SLR.
A little background knowledge about locomotives is required to fully understand what exactly transpired in the exchange of letters between Dr. Gunaruwan and Mahanama.
In Dr. Gunaruwan’s May 30 reply to A.G. Mahanama, he asked the engineer to clarify whether his stipulated maximum weight of 100.56 tonnes was also applicable to radial locomotives as well as rigid ones. In a highly questionable move, he further inquired from Mahanama as to the maximum permissible weight of a ‘CO-CO’ locomotive. The motive for this question is yet to be ascertained
The Chief Engineer replied on June 4, with a detailed table giving his recommendations for the maximum weights of locomotives, wherein he recommended that most locomotives should not be allowed to go over 100.56 tonnes in weight, again without basis.
Violation
If Dr. Gunaruwan’s ‘recommendations’ were to be applied to the tender evaluation that he was part of performing as a member of TEC, at the time of his issuing his letter, they would have resulted in the automatic disqualification of the EMD offer for being overweight. However, whether this could be allowed was in question as it would be a violation of tender procedure and involve circumventing a decision taken by CAPC.
The Sunday Leader acquired copies of these letters and questioned Dr. Gunaruwan as to their nature and what effect they could possibly have on the tender in progress. The GMR rubbished this allegation and told us that he was merely trying to establish a concise and complete set of specifications for the procurement of other locomotives in the future.
“All the specifications have been wrong so far. This has nothing to do with the tender that is going on. In fact if you publish this it might affect the tender and be unfair to some bidders,” he warned. Asked whether not informing TEC of Mahanama’s concerns would jeopardise passenger safety on the rail network should TEC recommend an overweight locomotive, the GMR scoffed at Mahanama’s specifications themselves.
“That is just one opinion from one engineer,” he said. “As the General Manager of Railways I have to be rational. I will not do something that will compromise passenger safety. To me, this maximum weight is meaningless as all the old bridges are solid and strong. Besides, any bidder can get around this by just putting two light locomotives, say 90 tonnes each, together. Then you get a 180 tonne weight and what will happen to the bridges? It is a big joke.”
It was at this stage, after extolling his good intentions and innocence, that Dr. Gunaruwan made a statement that ultimately ended up exposing his part in the foul play that was taking place. “This is just a set of internal documents you are referring to. It doesn’t concern the tender. If you publish these letters and they get mixed up with the tender, it could cause big problems for one of the bids under consideration.”
The tender bender
What Dr. Gunaruwan didn’t know when he spoke to us, is that we already possess the ’smoking gun’ indicating that he himself had done precisely what he advised us not to do. On June 6, two days after Mahanama sent his amended maximum weight recommendations, Dr. Gunaruwan wrote a covering letter to TEC Chairman, Additional General Manager (Technical), SLR, P.P. Wijesekera, titled “Procurement of 15 nos. new diesel electric locomotives.”
It began “attached letters are sent herewith for necessary action please,” and listed three letters. One was from the US Ambassador to Sri Lanka, Robert Blake, endorsing and recommending the EMD locomotive offer. Another was a letter from the US State Department also promoting EMD’s locomotive offer.
The final letter sent by Dr. Gunaruwan to the TEC Chairman “for necessary action” was Mahanama’s “letter No. Spec/Loco/2008 dated June 4, 2008″ which revised the maximum weight of locomotives permitted to operate on the rail track.
By forwarding this letter to the TEC Chairman and instructing him (as his subordinate) to act on its contents with regards to the tender under evaluation, Dr. Gunaruwan was in effect moving to circumvent tender procedure and take action that would, by his own admission to us, jeopardise the EMD bid for the railway tender.
Despite the attempt by the GMR and TEC member Mahanama to circumvent the CAPC decision on the maximum allowable weight, it appears that the TEC Chairman, P.P. Wijesekera and the rest of the TEC held their ground and did not give in to the attempted manipulation.
Although Wijesekera, when contacted by this newspaper, refused to comment on the affair, senior officials inside the Railway Department, speaking on condition of anonymity, told us that the entire TEC suspected that a game was afoot between Gunaruwan and Mahanama to either disqualify EMD and award the tender to India’s RITES by default, or cause the tender to be scuttled completely.
The other TEC members are suspicious not just of Mahanama’s motives, but also of his logic. Given that locomotives heavier than his weight limit of 100.56 tonnes are currently allowed to operate over the same bridges that he is concerned about, they have asked why it is only new locomotives would pose a safety risk.
It is also suspected that the Ways and Works Department does not have sufficient data available to come to its own conclusions about the reliability of any bridges since all previous studies of this nature have been done by inviting foreign consultants and specialists to scrupulously inspect the bridges down to the last detail with technology and means not available locally.
Compounding matters further was the fact that Mahanama actually refused to sign a routine document as a part of the initial bid evaluation process. According to a TEC member, the document did not concern the weight of the locomotives at all, but was related to more basic, general requirements of the bids.
Mahanama’s condition for signing the document was that his continued insistence on 100.56 tonnes being the maximum safe allowable weight, also be included as a note. “He was asking for the price of an omelette at a restaurant to be included in a note about how to crack an egg,” exclaimed the TEC member who spoke to us, frustrated by the engineer’s stubbornness. The risk was that should Mahanama’s concerns be recorded in the TEC proceedings without merit, they would have risked both the disqualification of EMD from this and all consecutive tenders, and shown discord and disagreement within the committee.
Faith in TEC
Meanwhile, a representative from EMD’s local agent quashed rumours circulating in the Railway Department that the company was planning to take legal action in the Supreme Court by seeking an injunction against their bid being dismissed via a fundamental rights petition.
“There is no truth in this. We have complete faith that the procurement authorities will do their job properly, and there are enough checks and balances in the system to ensure this. Whatever you say about any one member, there is no reason to believe that either TEC as a whole or for that matter CAPC has acted irregularly or illegally. We will have to respect their decision.”
What has to be realised is that there is an enormous amount of public money at stake – anywhere between US$30 to 60 million – depending on which bid is ultimately selected in the procurement process.
The authorities in charge of overseeing the working of this TEC should investigate the connotations of Dr. Gunaruwan’s and Mahanama’s actions, and satisfy themselves that no irregularities have taken place, and take whatever action is necessary to prevent yet another multi-million dollar railway tender bender that will further blot the copybook of Sri Lanka’s Railway Department.
Details of rail locomotives
There are three main types of rail engines operating in Sri Lanka, known as ‘BO-BO,’ ‘A-1-A’ and ‘CO-CO.’ The difference between them is the number of axles they have and how they are configured.
A ‘BO-BO’ locomotive consists of two pairs of two axles (front and back), and all four axles are powered by the train’s engine. Similarly, a ‘CO-CO’ locomotive has three pairs of two axles, giving a total of six wheels (front, rear and centre), all of which are powered by its engine. An ‘A-1-A’ locomotive also consists of a total of six wheels in three pairs, however only the front and back pairs are powered, and the centre pair of wheels are available just to help distribute the weight of the engine, and do not drive it.
‘A-1-A’ and ‘CO-CO’ locomotives are further divided into radial and rigid varieties. The difference here is how the alignment of the wheels changes in areas where the rail track curves. When a train takes a bend on a rail track, a rigid locomotive’s wheels, which always point exactly in the same direction, would exert strain on the rail track as they would be travelling at a slight angle to the track’s direction.
A radial locomotive however bends its undercarriage as it takes a curve. As such the wheels are always perpendicular to the track and thus exert minimum sideways strain on the track as a train takes a bend.
Whether a locomotive is radial or rigid is one factor that affects its ‘axle load,’ or the weight that each axle is allowed to exert on the track without risking damage to the railway system. Thus, it is by multiplying the number of axles on a locomotive by the maximum permissible axle load for a track, that the total allowed weight for a locomotive is established.
By Ranjith Jayasundera and Ruan Pethiyagoda
Source: The Sunday Leader
July 11th, 2008 at 5:33 pm
[...] text of the reply which was sent by Dr.Lalithasiri Gunaruwan-General Manager Railway on the “A Tender Bender in the Railway” article published on “The Sunday Leader” on [...]