The Maritime and Coastal Transport Sector of the Public Company for Coastal Management, which manages the ferry line in the Bay of Kotor, is facing major problems because, just before the start of the peak summer tourist season, the tenders for regular overhauls of three ferries, which were announced at the end of March, officially failed.
These are the ferries "Grbalj", "Teodo" and "Perast" whose current certificates of seaworthiness are about to expire, and therefore the ships must undergo regular overhauls and dry-dock hull inspections at the shipyard, which are carried out every other year during docking, in order for the Technical Inspectorate of the Maritime Safety and Port Management Authority of Montenegro to renew their navigation permits. Regular overhauls were carried out last year on the other five ferries of the state-owned company.
As stated in the decisions on annulment published by Morsko dobro on the central electronic public procurement portal of Montenegro, the tenders were declared unsuccessful even though two bids were received for each of them, namely from the shipyard "Adraatic 42" from Bijela, the shipyard "Punat" from the town of the same name on the island of Krk in Croatia, and "Lošinjske plobvidbe-Brodogradilište" from Mali Lošinj in Croatia.
The Public Procurement Service of the Coastal District, referring to Article 140 of the Public Procurement Act, excluded all these bidders from the public procurement procedure. This was done for reasons that are incomprehensible from the perspective of the maritime and shipbuilding profession, because those responsible in the Coastal District also stated that formal errors by the bidders, due to which their bids should have been excluded from the procedure as incorrect, included the fact that “Adriatic 42”, the “Punat” Shipyard and “Lošinjska plovidba-Brodogradilište” allegedly did not clearly indicate the exact number of pieces of their equipment and machinery that they will use during the docking and repair of ferries, or that the legal basis (ownership or lease) on which the bidder disposes of this equipment and resources was not stated. This is despite the fact that all three shipyards submitted a list of all their technical means and equipment at their disposal, which are significantly above the minimum requirements required by the tender.
In addition, the Coastal Zone Administration's expert services found that some of the bidders' bids were formally incorrect because they failed to submit diplomas and professional certificates, or evidence of how they employed specialist personnel who would carry out work on the ferries - primarily welders - in their "statements of economic entities" accompanying the bids. For this reason, the Coastal Zone Administration declared the shipyards' bids to be incorrect, even though they listed the names of their employees who were internationally certified by some of the world's most important classification societies in shipbuilding and ship repair, such as DNV, HRB, RINA, Lloyd Register...
The repairs of all three ships were, according to the total estimated value of the tender, supposed to cost 800.000 euros. In the case of the ferries “Grbalj” and “Perast”, these works had to be completed by the beginning of July at the latest, when the validity of the current technical clearance papers of these ships expires, and which cannot be extended without the ships being lifted from the sea onto the dock and their hulls inspected by experts from the Technical Inspectorate of the UPSUL of Montenegro.
The situation is somewhat better with the ferry "Teodo", whose navigation permit expires after the peak summer season, in September this year.
However, this has put the Maritime and Coastal Transport Sector in an awkward situation because, if the docking of the ship “Grbalj” is not completed by the beginning of July and the validity of its navigation permit is not extended by then, this ship, the second largest in terms of capacity in the entire ferry fleet of the Coastal Zone, will have to be taken out of service. This, in addition to the fact that, if the overhaul of the “Perasta” is not completed by then, which serves as a reserve for replacing other ferries that could possibly fall off the line due to extraordinary failures, would create real chaos in the functioning of ferry traffic during the upcoming peak of the summer tourist season during the heaviest crowds on the Kamenari-Lepetane line.
Due to these extraordinary circumstances, the ferry line management has resorted to extraordinary measures, so the “Grbalj” and “Perast” have already been withdrawn from traffic and now the ferry line employees themselves are performing all the work on these two ships in Lipci that can be completed without docking at the shipyard. However, even that will not be enough if the shipyards where the ferries will be docked are not selected soon, according to the procedure foreseen for urgent public procurement, and in the case of the “Grbalj”, a general service of its main propulsion engines “Cummins” and Schottel propellers is not carried out.
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