Egypt’s PPP Central Unit has awarded the Bareeq for Hospitals consortium a £E6.2bn ($1.03bn) contract to design, construct, finance and manage two public hospitals and a blood bank in Alexandria.

The contract duration is 20 years including three years for construction. The value of the contract is around EGP6.2bn ($1.03bn) in total, EGP3.1bn for each hospital.

The consortium is comprised of the following companies:

• Dar for Trading & Contracting (Egypt)
• Arab Academy for Electronic and Information Technology Services (Egypt)
• G4S Facilities Management (UK)
• Bareeq Capital & Projects Development (Egypt)

The Bareeq for Hospitals consortium will be responsible for financing, designing, constructing, equipping, furnishing, maintenance and operating the new facilities for Alexandria University, which falls under the authority of the Higher Education Ministry.

The winning group was one of two bids submitted on 19 October 2011 for the contract. The other bid was submitted by a group comprising:

• Orascom Construction Industries (Egypt)
• IT Ventures (UK)
• Hassan Allam (Egypt)
• Gemmo Impianti (Italy)

The work was tendered in two lots. Both bidding groups were eligible to submit bids for both lots and both groups opted to do so. The first lot was for the Smouha Maternity University Hospital and a blood bank. The contract includes a 200-bed hospital and a blood bank in the same hospital building. It will be located at the Smouha Hospital complex. The second lot was for the Mowassat Specialised University Hospital, a 224-bed facility with a focus on highly specialised services in neurosurgery and urology/nephrology. The hospital will be located at a site adjacent to the old Mowassat Hospital.

The Bareeq for Hospitals consortium will be responsible for the initial procurement and maintenance of equipment for the facilities for a period of five years, after which it will become the responsibility of the university. This aspect was originally excluded from the tender, but later brought in as a compromise to ensure that the equipment is fully operational and deal with the risks attached to maintaining such equipment over the term of the contract.

The IFC was financial adviser on the project, while the UK’s Mott MacDonald was technical adviser and UK law firm Trowers & Hamlins was legal adviser.

The project was announced several years ago and bids were initially expected in September 2008. However, the project timelines were pushed back several times and it faced further delays as a result of the country’s civil unrest that unseated long-time president Hosni Mubarak in 2011.