Denmark’s largest land and civil engineering contractor could virtually set their own price for the construction contract on the new Ringsted-Femern railway. FemernReport has obtained document access to the tender and offer process at BaneDanmark, and it appears from it that BaneDanmark only received one offer for the task.
119,6 million
The “winning” offer from M.J. Eriksson was worth 119,677,968 euros. BaneDanmark estimated the task at approximately 70 million Euros in the tender documents. In other words, M.J. Eriksson’s offer was 50 million euros more expensive than BaneDanmark expected to pay. This corresponds to a price that is 39 per cent higher than expected.
No government – no comment
FemernReport has asked BaneDanmark whether receiving only one offer for such a large task is satisfactory. However, BaneDanmark does not wish to comment on the matter. The board refers to the fact that there is currently no transport minister and that they will not comment in any context that can be interpreted as political.
Lingering questions
A large number of questions remain in the case. Including why the Danish state does not do more to attract offers for EU tenders, how BaneDanmark’s tenderers can calculate almost 40 per cent under in a tender for over half a billion and whether there is even free and fair competition on a task when there is only one bidder. But these questions remain until Denmark again has a government and, thus, a responsible resort minister.
30 kilometres of track and a new station
In connection with the Fehmarn project, 30 kilometres of railway on Lolland will be expanded from one to two tracks, and a new station will be established at Holeby. M. J. Eriksson is already at work. The construction contract for the railway line from Ringsted to Nykøbing Falster was also awarded to M.J. Eriksson back in 2016. At that time, however, there were four offers for the job.
