Winter may be coming but that hasn’t stopped the City of Châteauguay from planning ahead to next summer.
It is planning to build a new water park at the Josaphat-Pitre playground in a residential neighbourhood.
But when the city put a call for bids to see which company would have the best offer, Châteauguay Mayor Nathalie Simon said something strange happened.
“It turns out that there was only a one-cent difference in between two bidders,” Simon said. “We selected the one that was one cent more expensive.”
The companies in question are Vortex Aquatic Structures International based in Pointe-Claire and Simexco from Sainte-Julie.
Both supplied the lowest bids at just over $103,477.
But Vortex Aquatic Structures International’s bid came up one penny more than Simexco’s at $103,477.51 and $103,477.50, respectively.
Despite having the lowest bid, Simexco lost the contract.
As it turns out, submitting the lowest bid won’t necessarily get you a public contract. Companies are also graded on a scorecard by city experts and elected officials are not involved in the process.
That mark is then weighed against the total cost of the proposal.
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In this case, Vortex Aquatic Structures International, which would cost the city one penny more, scored 87 points while the competition Simexco scored 85.5 points.
Although the bids raised some suspicion of collusion, cancelling the tender was not a practical solution.
“For a municipality to not go with the tenders when we had the bid and everything went through the process, it’s hard because we have to change the bid,” Simon said. “Then the person who was supposed to have it, according to the rules, can sue us.”
Architect and former Côte-St.-Luc mayor Robert Libman said it’s unusual to see bids a penny apart.
“Looking at a bid sheet, I’ve never seen two bids – particularly the two lowest bids – being separated by one penny but it doesn’t necessarily mean there was collusion in this case,” Libman said.
He added there is one way to eliminate suspicion.
“I would just ask to meet with or have our professionals meet with the two companies just to reassure and satisfy the elected officials that there’s no collusion or nothing underhanded took place in this case,” Libman said.
A good way to start determining if there was foul play is to verify where each company intended on purchasing their materials for the project.
The winning bidder, Vortex Aquatic Structures Internationalm, was unavailable for comment but the runner up, Simexco, denies collusion with the winner.
Global News reached out to the anti-corruption squad UPAC. It confirmed it might look into the Châteauguay water park contract.
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