Trading Corporation of Bangladesh (TCB) will directly procure some 12.5 million litres of soybean oil and 5,000kg of lentils from seven local suppliers without following any competitive process.
Cabinet Committee on Government Purchase (CCGP) in a meeting, with Finance Minister AHM Mustafa Kamal in the chair, gave approval to the proposals in this regard.
Commerce Ministry placed the proposals on behalf of the TCB, the state marketing agency.
As per the proposals, some four million litres of the edible will be procured from Super Oil Refinery at Tk173.95 per litre while the remaining 8.5 million litres will be purchased from three suppliers at Tk171 per litre.
Of the three suppliers, Shun Shing Edible Oil Ltd, a subsidiary company of Bangladesh Edible Oil Limited (BEOL), will supply two million litres while Bashundhara Multi Food Products Limited (BMFPL), a subsidiary of Bashundhara Group, will supply 3.5 million litres and Sena Edible Oil Industry, a subsidiary of Sena Kalyan Sangstha Bangladesh, will provide 30,000 litres of soybean oil.
The four million litres of edible oil will cost Tk69.58 crore while 8.5 million litres will cost Tk145.35 crore.
Some 5,000kg of lentils will be procured from three suppliers at a cost of Tk55.50 crore with each kg price at Tk111.
Of these, some 3,000kg will be purchased from ACI Limited, 1,000kg from Nadil Traders and 1,000kg from Roy Traders.
Abdul Barik, additional secretary of the Cabinet, who briefed reporters about the outcomes of the Cabinet body meeting, said the TCB will procure the commodities through the direct procurement method (DPM) showing the cause of emergency needs.
The TCB, a subordinate body of the Commerce Ministry, will sell these goods to people at controlled rates as part of the government’s open market sale (OMS) program, he added.
The CCGP also approved another 13 proposals from different ministries.
Of these, the state-owned Bangladesh Chemical Industries Corporation (BCIC) will procure some 120,000 metric tons (mt) of fertilizer from four international suppliers.
Of these, 30,000 mt of bagged prilled urea fertilizer will be procured from Muntajat of Qatar at a cost of Tk152.50 crore, while another 30,000 mt bagged granular from Kafco at Tk151.57 crore.
Some 30,000 mt of bulk granular urea will be imported from SABIC Agri-nutrients Company of Saudi Arabia at Tk151.88 crore and another 30,000 mt from the same Saudi company at Tk149.08 crore.
Each metric ton of urea from the four lots will cost between $443.35 and $524.50 which earlier were between $588 and $557.87 per metric ton.
This shows that the cost of urea fertilizer is decreasing in the global market which had crossed $1,000 immediately after the Russia-Ukraine war began.
Six separate proposals from the Chittagong Port Authority under the Ministry of Shipping received the nod of the committee to hire six berth operators at the port for the next five years.
