Posted on February 14, 2025
The Argentine Government of President Javier Milei Wednesday declared the tender for the Paraná-Paraguay Waterway – which handles 80% of the country’s exports and is also vital for Paraguay – concession void and launched an investigation into the only bidders: Dredging Environmental and Marine Engineering (DEME) for allegedly pressuring other potential bidders not to participate. The National Commission for the Defense of Competition will look into possible anti-competitive practices or an illicit association, it was explained.
Presidential spokesman Manuel Adorni highlighted DEME’s paradoxical behavior of criticizing the bidding’s transparency yet being the only bidder. “During the procedure, political, media, and business sectors lobbied in favor of their own interests and demanded the Government to lower the technical standards of the specifications only for their own benefit,” Adorni said.
“We [the Government] were accused of being very demanding, of incompatible negotiations, of corruption, among other false accusations that are usually made against us in different matters. And this was no exception, of course,” he further explained.
National Agency of Ports and Navigation’s Iñaki Arreseygor underscored the process’ transparency and pointed out there were initially 11 interested parties, who withdrew for unknown reasons. We will “start working on the new bidding documents immediately,” he also pointed out.
The Belgian company DEME had previously claimed that the bidding process had been conceived to favor the also Belgian Jan de Nul, the previous licensee, which surprisingly abstained from bidding this time around.
DEME’s alleged pressure on the remaining companies or the existence of an alleged illicit association to the detriment of the National Government and the Argentine producers needs to be determined, the Argentine authorities argued. “The investigation will serve to clarify whether the events occurred within the framework of this bidding, to demonstrate to all the actors interested in future State bids that the Government will be implacable before any attempt to manipulate the results, and also to bring to the Criminal Justice those responsible for wanting to defraud the Argentine people,” Adorni also mentioned.
“We had eleven interested parties in the system making multiple consultations, who magically decided not to present themselves,” he insisted.
The Paraguay-Paraná waterway is one of the most important water reserves in the world, Dredging and maintenance tasks are essential to keep navigability and safety.
“The government always remarked the need to have a trained operator under the highest international standards and the best price and it also committed itself to a transparent and competitive bidding process. The only bid submitted was that of DEME, which took care of staining the process with complaints of lack of transparency, lawsuits before Justice, and other actions, which desisted a few days before,” Adorni elaborated.
“The Government responded to the challenges of the potential bidders and the courts validated in three instances the legality of the bidding process. However, and to everyone’s surprise, the only bid received was that of DEME,” the spokesman went on.
