Several complaints have been submitted to different institutions regarding the school catering procurement process in Riga, as acknowledged on Friday in an interview with TV3 by Riga City Executive Director Jānis Lange.
Three bidders have filed complaints with the Public Procurement Monitoring Bureau, one complaint has been submitted to the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau (KNAB), and another to the Competition Council. However, Lange expressed confidence in the municipality’s position in these disputes.
According to Lange, the municipality received the best possible bids in the tender, which were of very high quality. He emphasized that Riga is not unique, as the use of a lottery in procurement processes – in cases where bidders receive identical scores – is also practiced in other municipalities.
Lange argued that introducing additional requirements would create artificial bureaucratic barriers.
As previously reported, the right to sign a five-year contract for providing school meals at nine educational institutions was awarded to the consortium “Aleks un V, CNC” through Riga Municipality’s procurement process. The total value of the contract is approximately 53 million euros, with “Aleks un V, CNC” awarded over 17 million euros for catering services at the nine schools.
Eight bidders submitted offers in the procurement. One was disqualified for not meeting the specified requirements, leaving seven contenders in the running. Their bids were assessed as equivalent in terms of quality – including criteria such as organically grown food, compliance with the National Food Quality Scheme, sourcing from within 300km of the delivery location, and the provision of seasonal products. In terms of pricing, a minimum and maximum price corridor was set, and all participants offered the minimum allowable price.
As a result, the winner was selected via a lottery involving all bidders who signed a declaration agreeing to the lottery procedure.
In total, Riga organizes catering procurements for 90 schools and 148 kindergartens.