Procurement for the restoration of damaged buildings under the World Bank project in Mykolaiv will have to be restarted

A destroyed building at 43 Pohranychna Street in Mykolaiv, photo: NikVesti

The development of project documentation for the restoration of buildings damaged by shelling in Mykolaiv has been halted due to disagreements between the Ministry of Infrastructure and the World Bank over the «Housing Repair for the Restoration of People’s Rights and Opportunities (HOPE)» project. The procurement process will have to be re-tendered. There will be 10 in total, as more buildings have been included in the project.

This was announced during a briefing on 18 March by Ihor Nabatov, Deputy Director of the Housing and Utilities Department, according to NikVesti.

As a reminder, the NikVesti article «Reconstruction or just paperwork: how Mykolaiv will spend ₴150 million from the World Bank» mentioned that the development of documents for the reconstruction of 54 damaged buildings must be completed by April 2026.

When asked whether the drafting of the documents had already been completed, given that there is effectively less than a month left until the deadline, Ihor Nabatov replied that problems had arisen.

«As of today, regarding those procurements (for the HOPE project — note), which were carried out, we still, unfortunately, do not have any signed contracts. This is due to the fact that in late February – early March, as a result of the disputes between our Ministry of Infrastructure and the World Bank, a decision was unfortunately made that those joint venture participants comprising state-owned enterprises subordinate to the Ministry of Infrastructure cannot participate in the assessment of such a joint venture’s capacity,» explained Ihor Nabatov.

Ihor Nabatov, Deputy Director of the Housing and Utilities Department. Photo: ‘NikVesti’

He added that there were many participants in the cooperation between state-owned enterprises and limited liability companies. But the conditions for participation have changed.

«It must be understood that the capabilities of state-owned enterprises in terms of experience were quite substantial. And they did indeed raise such joint ventures to a higher level for assessment and to enable their transition to the next stage. Unfortunately, the World Bank decided that there was a certain conflict of interest here. Although the client is ostensibly the city, not the ministry, the ministry is still the supervisor of this process,» added the deputy director of the Housing and Utilities Department.

According to him, the central project management explained that from now on they would be evaluating not the capacity of the state-owned enterprise, but only the limited liability companies that were project participants. This also entails changes – the preparation of new technical specifications.

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«This drastically changes the total number of points our participants received. And, unfortunately, it has led to us now being at the stage of preparing new technical specifications to account for these changes. In order to re-tender procurements and proceed with new procurements, taking into account that state-owned enterprises may technically be participants, they will not be evaluated. Therefore, there is simply no point in submitting them,» said Ihor Nabatov.

He noted that such changes have seriously affected procurement across the country.

«So the situation now is this: new technical specifications are being prepared to take these changes into account. The requirements for participants regarding the experience they must have are being slightly relaxed. The World Bank has observed that limited liability companies or private enterprises, which in our country are participating in all four communities currently involved in the HOPE project, unfortunately do not always meet the qualification criteria that were originally set. Therefore, a slight reduction — of around 30% — in the qualification requirements has been agreed, and we are relaunching the process,» noted Ihor Nabatov.

The overall duration of the HOPE project has been extended until November 2027.

«We are trying to obtain this design and cost estimate documentation as quickly as possible, but at present all cities find themselves in a situation where we need to review the conditions and start afresh,» explained the deputy director of the Housing and Utilities Department.

However, lowering the qualification criteria may enable Mykolaiv-based companies to participate.

«It’s a bit of a mixed bag so far across all procurements. But I hope that with slightly lower criteria, the number of participants from the southern region will increase, not to mention the city of Mykolaiv itself. Because, in fact, we see that Mykolaiv-based companies are applying; it’s not that they don’t apply at all, but they don’t meet the qualification criteria even at the first stage. They are weeded out and don’t make it to the second stage,» added Ihor Nabatov.

Overall, the project will involve the restoration of 69 buildings.