How do you check quantity takeoffs when a Garowe bid looks low?

A low bid from a Garowe contractor is more often a thin quantity takeoff than a bargain. Read each bill line back against the drawings, the specification and the site, and the missing work quantities usually show up in cart-away, water, fixing and site preparation. The number that looks competitive is often the number that never counted the work. Line by line, the gap appears where no one has measured yet.

What does a low bid hide in a Garowe quantity takeoff?

It hides the items the estimator did not measure, not the items he priced badly. General practice in building takeoff is to measure from the drawings and add allowances the drawings do not show: excavation bulking when soil comes out looser than it sat, backfill compaction in layers, cart-away of surplus and unsuitable material, water for curing and dust control, formwork to edges and upstands, and preparation of existing surfaces before any screed or render. In Puntland, cart-away and water carting travel distances can be long, so an omitted trip is not a rounding error. Ask the bidder for his takeoff sheets: quantities, units and the drawing number each line came from. Where a line has no drawing reference, ask what it covers. Confirm the project specification with the engineer before you accept any rate as complete.

Where do unrealistic tender allowances creep in?

They creep in wherever an estimator prices from a rate book instead of the site. A rate per cubic metre tells you nothing about the haul, the ground or the access. Take the bid to the plot and walk it: where does the spoil go, where does the water come from, can a lorry reach the excavation, how much vegetation and rubble has to be cleared first. Ask the municipal engineer's office whether the plot file holds any borehole logs, trial pit records or previous fill history, and read them against the excavation rates in the bill. Check curing and protection separately: a rate that assumes one watering a day will not hold under a dry inland wind. If the contract lists provisional sums or a schedule of rates, check what they cover and what falls outside them, because an unrealistic allowance in a provisional sum still becomes a variation later.

How do you detect omitted costs before you recommend an award?

You detect them by comparing all bids line by line and asking about every outlier. Put the bills side by side and look at the spread: where one bidder sits well below the others on a single line, that line is either mispriced or missing scope. Ask the bidder to confirm in writing what his rate includes for that line: supply, fixing, cart-away, curing, testing. Ask who provides water and power, who clears the site, and who reinstates after the work. Walk a recent site the bidder finished, ideally of similar size, and ask the owner what extra payments came up. Then ask your engineer to re-measure the three or four largest lines from the drawings and compare them with the bid quantities. Where the contract allows, check what it says about measurement, variations and valuation of omitted work, and take advice before you treat a low rate as an omission you can recover later.

What to do next

Pick the three largest bill lines in the lowest bid and re-measure them yourself from the drawings. Then send the bidder one written question per line: state the quantity, the unit and what the rate includes, and ask him to confirm or correct it before the award. Keep the replies with the tender file.