recently I participated in a tender with Emal. I will not mention what products I offered but lets just say it was a tender for a car.
techniqually me and another supplier were accepted.
The supplier had offered Toyota for 1.2 Million Dollars and Mercedes for 1.5 Million Dollars.
I had offered BMW for 800K dollars and Ferrari for 1 Million Dollars.
Emal had a contractor, who would have designed their smelters, buildings etc etc. And the same guys were chosen to decide on which instruments to buy.
So the outcome was that they had decided to buy a toyota for 1.2 million dollars with one year warranty.
Now what cheeses me off is that the purchasing guy didnt know JACK shit about the products which we were offering. If he did know, then I think he would have gone for the Ferrari, which is cheaper then the toyota, much better performance wise and more powerful compared to the toyota. On top of that it came with 5 years warranty whereas the toyota came with 1 year warranty.
What i found out was that the purchasing guy (from the contracting company chosen from Emal) was an indian and happens to be from the same village as the other supplier :S. And I am sure that this purchasing guy was in the pockets of the supplier. Thats fine with me, thats how business is done and world is a tough place to live on.
But who looses out? I am sure that if Emal were to find out that they have bought the oldest technology and paid alot for it, they will be pissed. If budget was a limitation, they could have gone for the BMW for 800K which again comes with 5 years warranty and is again better then the toyota!!.
I am not complaining that I didnt get the order. I believe its my duty as a muslim and as a person who thinks of UAE as their home, that EMAL should investigate this. If they dont want to buy my product, thats fine with me, however they shouldnt pay too much for a old technology, and if they do then atleast they should ask the supplier for 5 years warranty, which I was offering.
I believe that EMAL have been ripped off. Ok 1 million is not a huge sum for the government owned EMAL but end of the day money is money and I believe it has been wasted, instead of being utilized properly.
Now should I make a fuss out of this? If so how should I go about it, should I report it to the media (dont have a chance with the media since they just want to report about how well the metro is doing etc) or should I approach the CEO of Emal directly? Or does anyone know about how to get in touch with the government regarding such cases?