Greater Shepparton City Council is reviewing the procurement process over the awarding of a multimillion-dollar contract.
Greater Shepparton City Council has engaged an independent legal adviser to undertake a review of the procurement process that saw a significant council contract awarded to a former employee with limited experience.
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Pamecs Pty Ltd was awarded the contract — believed to be in excess of $2.4 million — just two months after the company was formed to tender for the job.
The contract was for the procurement of engineering and associated services, which will see council engineering work previously done in-house done by an external company.
The News understands Pamecs director Mayanak Gupta was employed in February 2024 as a team leader in council’s engineering services.
Mr Gupta left council on August 1 this year.
Mr Gupta, aged in his late 20s, was previously employed by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning, and VicRoads, after graduating in 2019.
A business search of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission shows that Mr Gupta’s company Pamecs Pty Ltd was registered as a business on August 5 — only three days before the tender for the engineering services contract was released by council.
Pamecs Pty Ltd was awarded a multimillion-dollar council contract.
A month later the tender period closed.
The Pamecs website shows the business now operates out of the Shepparton Business Centre on Old Dookie Rd, apparently since around mid-September.
Councillors voted to award the contract for engineering and associated services at a special council meeting on October 7.
This part of the meeting was closed to the public, as these tender decisions generally are.
Councillors would have been presented with all the different tenders, identified only by letters of the alphabet, rather than business names, as per council’s current policy with awarding tenders.
Senior staff would have also made a recommendation for which tender they thought should be successful.
The News understands that at the time of awarding the contract councillors were not made aware Pamecs Pty Ltd was run by a former employee or that Pamecs Pty Ltd had only recently set up an office at the Shepparton Business Centre. Nor were they told about Pamec’s apparent lack of project experience in delivering engineering services.
A number of councillors are thought to be very unhappy with the process.
In a statement to The News, Mayor Shane Sali said councillors were “responsible for oversight of policy and compliance”.
“In line with this responsibility, we have requested a formal review of the engineering and associated services procurement process,” he said.
Also in the statement to The News, council chief executive Fiona Le Gassick said “we welcome the line of inquiry by the councillors and are actively working with the legal firm to finalise the review within the next two weeks”.
“Council will respond immediately should any recommendations be identified via the review,” she said.
The News is not alleging any wrong-doing by Mr Gupta.
The News understands several long-established local engineering businesses with a history of delivering council projects also tendered for the works but were unsuccessful.
Numerous sources have expressed concern to The News about a tender process resulting in council awarding a substantial contract to a business they say has no history of delivering council projects, and no demonstrated capability to fulfil such a major contract.
The Pamecs Pty Ltd website reveals little information about who the staff are, other than the director, and The News understands recruiters have been approaching engineers in other local businesses to work for Pamecs since it was awarded the contract.
Its ‘Portfolio of work’ section says simply, ‘coming soon’.
