Delay, even by six months, in constructing the $2.9 billion Padma bridge might escalate the project’s cost by 4 to 5 percent, said Prof Jamilur Reza Choudhury, chief of the technical evaluation committee for the project.

“The longer the delay is, the costlier the construction will

be. The bridge was scheduled to be finished between 2012 and 2016. If it now finishes between 2013 and 2017 the cost will obviously escalate,” he told The Daily Star on Wednesday.

However, he said, the cost rise would be subjected to global development. “If there are huge construction works across the globe the prices of construction materials, especially of steel, would go up.

The leading engineer of the country said some local agents of foreign bidders in the Padma bridge project had triggered the corruption issue by sending dubious letters and documents to the World Bank. “There was an unholy competition among the local agents," he added.

“I also got some anonymous emails, which I have submitted to the Anti-Corruption Commission. The companies who had failed to qualify sent numerous

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complains to many,” he said.

Prof Jamilur is doubtful of the bridge's construction in the near future. He, however, sees China as the silver lining. “If the government can make a successful negotiation with China there could be a chance,” he opined.

Asked how much the local agents were responsible for the WB's loan cancellation for Padma bridge, he mentioned Ventura International, local agent of disqualified China Railway Construction Corporation (CRCC).

“The documents and photos submitted in the official pad of CRCC were proven false. I later came to know that the owner of CRCC's local agent company had threatened the Bridges Division officials of jeopardising the project,” said Prof Jamilur.

He said the agent had set up an office in China and used the official pad of CRCC, but the Chinese firm later disowned the agent when the forgery was exposed.

Prof Jamilur said he had heard that the local agents tried to influence members of various committees of the bridge project, but failed.

The members of the committees and the design consultant of the project AECOM-Maunsell had followed the WB guidelines and done everything accurately but the bank at some points directed and compelled them to change their decision which delayed the project, he added.

He said five firms had qualified in the prequalification of the main bridge construction through bidding, which had both concrete bore piling and steel recking piling options. Later on WB's suggestion, the design was changed and only the steel piling option was kept leaving the option open for the qualified firms to hire a company with steel piling experience.

“But the WB did not agree to that and pressed to float a fresh pre-qualification tender although for two months we had tried to make them understand that a fresh effort would not yield any positive result,” said Prof Jamilur, adding that the same five firms also qualified in the second pre-qualification tender.

The qualified companies are: Samsung C&T Corporation of Korea, China Major Bridge Engineering Co Ltd, Daelim-Bam-VCI (a joint venture entity of Korea), Vinci-HCC (a joint venture of France and India) and China Communication Construction Company Ltd.

At one stage, the WB started pressing for CRCC, which had been disqualified earlier.

“Although we told the bank that the firm had failed to meet the criteria of steel piling, the WB repeatedly told us to collect more information from the Chinese firm,” he said, adding that the CRCC had sent some photos of steel

piling of a bridge in China which, in fact, were of Auckland Bay Bridge in California.

“As the fraudulence was exposed, the CRCC claimed that it had not submitted the photos although its local agent used the CRCC's offi-cial pads. Ventura International then wrote a letter to the Bridges Division withdrawing itself from the Padma bridge race,” said Prof Jamilur.

About the construction supervision consultancy, he said five firms -- SNC-Lavalin, Oriental, AECOM-Mounsell, Helcrow and High Point Randal — had been selected in two-envelop-system and following the quality and cost-based process prescribed by the WB. Marking of the technical quality was 90 percent while ofcost 10 percent.

At this the government formed a committee headed by the then Bridges Division secretary. When the task of the committee was almost done and it was about to submit its report, the committee was mysteriously dissolved. There were allegations that the local agents of the pre-qualified firms were making desperate efforts to influence the committee members, he said.

“A new committee headed by me was then formed and we started evaluating the tender documents of the firms. SNC-Lavalin became the number one qualified firm in our extensive technical and financial evaluation," said Prof Jamilur.

He said the evaluation report was sent to the WB but the Canadian police raided the office of SNC-Lavalin just before the approval of the report. It eventually stalled everything.

The WB, however, had no objection about the evaluation report, he added.

On the alleged corruption in appointing the construction consultant, he said, “We know about a diary recovered by the Canadian police in which reportedly is a list of some people, including a I Bangladeshi] minister and other government officials, to whom SNC-Lavalin had pledged a certain percentage. But I think it's not the diary only as the WB would not do that [cancel the loan] based on a diary. There must be something else.”

Asked whether the WB made a harsh decision, he said Bangladesh's economic strength is very poor and hence it cannot fight with a strong institution like the WB. “But China can. WB's policy for China is more flexible than that for Bangladesh.”

Robert Zoellick, the immediate past WB president, had changed the bank's policy against corruption following China's warning that it would not borrow money from the bank, if there is any excess in the name of checking corruption, he pointed out.

He referred to a provision of the WB policy where it is said, “Our policy will not be applied uniformly to all

borrowers...it depends on the country condition.”

Prof Jamilur, who is also the chairman of a 10-member international panel of experts to oversee the bridge design and that the environmental impacts were considered properly, said tender procedures of four other packages of the project were nearly completed. Of them, he said, the selection of a firm for the $160-million approach road at the Jinjira end of the Padma bridge was at the final stage.

“Unfortunately, the Islamic Development Bank, which was supposed to lend $140-million for the project, refused to approve a firm that is recommended in our evaluation report due to the loan cancellation by the WB," concluded Prof Jamilur.