The consortium of the companies "VSA Vilnius" and the Dutch "Dolmans Landscaping Group", which manage public spaces in the Lazdynai, Karoliniškii and Pilaitė districts of Vilnius, illegally won the tender, therefore the contract with it must be terminated, the court ruled. According to him, the companies did not adequately justify the price of the offer, their qualifications were inadequate.
The Vilnius District Court, which examined the complaint of the company "Mano aplinka" of the concern "Icor" group, decided on January 17 that the decision of the Vilnius municipality to declare "VSA Vilnius" and "Dolmans Landscaping Group" the winner of the tender and sign the contract is illegal, but in order to ensure public services , ordered the termination of the three-year contract not immediately, but from the beginning of April this year.
The director of the administration of the capital municipality Povilas Poderskis told BNS that the decisions of the municipality were legal, therefore the decision of the district court is to be appealed to the Court of Appeal.
"VSA Vilnius" and "Dolmans Landscaping Group" city management services Lazdynas, in Karoliniškės and In Pilaite (the second part of the purchase) offered to perform for 5,246 mln. euros, at that time "Mano aplinka" was second - for 10,28 million. euros. According to "My environment", the unusually low price of "VSA Vilniaus" and "Dolmans Landscaping Group" cannot be objectively justified, it is impossible to provide high-quality and qualified services.
"Mano aplinka" also told the court that all management services will be provided independently by "VSA Vilnius", which alone does not meet the requirements of the tender, which is why Dolmans Landscaping Group was used, although the latter does not actually provide any services.
Both the Vilnius municipality and VSA Vilnius claimed to the court that the price of the offer was reasonable, and that it allows savings of about 5 million. euros, corresponds to the principle of rational use of funds and public interests. The municipality and "VSA Vilnius" also emphasized that the participation of "Dolmans Landscaping Group" will not only be a consultation, but also a real transfer of experience and know how methodologies, working principles.
The Vilnius District Court disagreed with the arguments of the municipality and "VSA Vilnius" and noted that during the tender it was not established whether "VSA Vilnius" and "Dolmans Landscaping Group" are qualified and capable of fulfilling its conditions. According to the court, "VSA Vilniaus", which together with "Dolmans Landscaping Group" is recognized as the winner of the fifth part of the tender, does not have enough employees to fulfill the contract.
"The third party (VSA Vilnius - BNS) did not plan to import workers directly providing services from the Netherlands - for example, spec. transport drivers, workers working with trimmers, others. (….) The fact that several employees of the foreign partner will arrive and provide organizational management work in Lithuania cannot be considered as evidence that all the resources of the partner's and subsuppliers' employees will be available to "VSA Vilniui" during the entire period of execution of the contract," the court ruling reads.
The court was also not convinced by the arguments that the low price of the offer of "VSA Vilnius" and "Dolmans Landscaping Group" was determined by the fact that it was calculated using the standards applied in the Netherlands, adapting them to the city of Vilnius.
"In the court's assessment, there are no real premises in the case to recognize that VSA Vilnius has any particularly economical method or model of service provision, know-how, allowing to increase the work productivity of auxiliary workers several times. (…) The offer documents did not disclose what was specified know-how the essence and how it differs from the current method of managing the city, according to which the number of employees specified by "VSA Vilnaius" is not sufficient", the court ruling states.
"VSA Vilnius" and "Dolmans Landscaping Group" offered 11,251 mln. price of EUR also won the competition in the territories of New Vilnius, Rasa, Naujininkai, Vilkpėda, Paneri and Grigiškii (part 5 of the competition). In second place was Stebulės, the long-term administrator of the capital, and the municipal company "Beam" consortium, whose bid price was 21,468 million euros.
According to Stanislovas Tamulevičius, the manager of "Stebulė", the company also appealed this part of the purchase to the court, but later withdrew the claim.
"Maybe we made a mistake, but we withdrew our lawsuit and did not participate in this process (...) Both the municipality and VSA Vilnius kept everything, even elementary things, secret, so we decided not to participate in the process because we could not get acquainted with certain things", BNS said. S. Tamulevičius.
"I think that the contract will be terminated not only in the second, but also in the fifth part, and a new tender for the purchase of services will be announced," added the head of "Stebulė".
Companies managing the city must provide sanitary cleaning and landscaping services for common areas, cleaning of sidewalks and paths, bicycle paths, stairs in summer and winter, their maintenance in winter, mowing grass in yards, near streets and other public spaces, raking leaves, cleaning trash cans and other works.
