The Infrastructure Development Office (GDI) has relaunched a public tender for the construction of the Seac Pai Van section of the Light Rail Transit (LRT), according to an announcement published in the Official Gazette (BO) yesterday.
According to the announcement, potential bidders are required to submit their quotations by June 28. The office will unseal the submitted bids the next day.
The office announced on May 20 that it had decided to relaunch its public tender for the LRT Seac Pai Van section project, as 10 construction companies proposed quotations and construction periods that were “obviously lower and shorter than the reasonable levels” in the respective bids they submitted last year.
The office invited bids for the project in late July last year, for which 10 companies submitted their respective bids, which were unsealed by the office in early September. All bids were accepted at that time.
According to a GDI announcement in September last year, the quotations proposed by the 10 bidders ranged from 896 million patacas to 975 million patacas.
According to September’s GDI announcement, the office had set a maximum period of 960 working days for the winning bidder to complete the project.
According to September’s GDI announcement, the construction periods proposed by the 10 bidders ranged from 490 to 820 working days.
Last month’s GDI statement said that after assessing the 10 bids submitted last year, GDI officials had concluded that the proposed quotations and construction periods were “obviously too low and too short”.
Last month’s statement said that based on previous experiences, the office had concluded that if the project’s construction contract had been granted to any of the 10 bidders, it was likely that it would have resulted in “serious” budget overruns and construction delays.
Consequently, last month’s statement said, the government had decided to cancel last year’s bids “in the public interest”, as the construction periods proposed by the 10 bidders were “extremely unreasonably [short]”.
890 working days
According to yesterday’s announcement in the Official Gazette (BO), the office has now set a maximum period of 890 working days for the winning bidder to complete the project.
The 1.6-kilometre-long Seac Pai Van section will connect the still under-construction Cotai hospital complex – officially known as Islands Healthcare Complex – and the sprawling Seac Pai Van public housing estate in Coloane.
“Islands” is the official term for Taipa, Coloane and Cotai together.
The Seac Pai Van section will only have two stations – one in Estrada do Istmo near the future Cotai hospital complex, and the other one in Estrada de Seac Pai Van outside the Seac Pai Van public housing estate.
In addition to the two stations – officially known as Islands Hospital station and Seac Pai Van station, a transfer station will be built on the LRT Taipa section for LRT passengers to transfer between the Taipa section and the Seac Pai Van section.
The future Islands Hospital station will be extended and connected to the transfer station on the Taipa section. The Lotus Checkpoint station on the Taipa section is the closest station to the future transfer station.
These artist’s renditions downloaded from the Infrastructure Development Office (GDI) website yesterday show the future Light Rail Transit (LRT) Seac Pai Van station (left) and Islands Hospital station.
