Arab Dar al-Handassa wins Suez Canal bid

Dar al-Handassa is the winning firm for the development of the new Suez Canal project, Mohab Mamish, head of the Suez Canal Authority said in a press conference in Ismailia on Tuesday. 

The firm will work in partnership with its Egyptian branch by the same name, after they received authorization from the National Security Agency and the contract was approved by the State Council.

‫Dar al-Handassa was established in Lebanon by a Palestinian engineer named Kamal al-Shaer, which, according to Nael al-Shafei, a lecturer at the University of Massachusetts who conducted research on the new Suez Canal project, was an unofficial financier of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in the 1960s.

The company slowly distanced itself from the PLO and in the 1980s, the Saudi branch, which will undertake the Suez Canal project today, became associated with Sheikh Kamal Adham, the founder of the Saudi intelligence. It is unclear whether Adham is still involved as a partner in the Saudi branch of the company, but Shafei says that Dar al-Handassa, which undertakes major national projects in the Gulf, has King Abdullah himself as a partner.

While Mamish said the company's headquarters is in Bahrain, economic analyst Wael Gamal flagged that Bahrain features no where as the company's headquarters or even main branch. On his Facebook page, Gamal added that the company's locations and ownership structures are unknown since it went through several changes in the last year.

On August 3, Reuters cited a government source as saying that Egypt's Armed Forces have investments in the Cairo branch of Dar al-Handassa.  

The Suez Canal development project includes an initial project to dig a parallel canal to the historic canal in a quest to increase the revenues from ships passages by about 259 percent. The project will be undertaken by Egypt's Armed Forces, in what was described as a bid to preserve the sensitive national security concerns surrounding the project. 

"The Suez Canal project will be implemented through direct national financing alone, to guarantee the preservation of his Egyptian identity," Mamish said. 

Ibrahim Mehleb, who was present at the press conference, had said last week that investment certificates in the canal will be made available in banks worth LE10, LE100 and LE1,000, with a 12 percent interest rate. For Egyptians abroad, certificates with of US$1000 will be made available at a 3 percent interest rate. 

The development project surrounding the new canal is the one that was opened for international bidding and it includes creating an industrial and administrative hub, with a variety of projects. 

Dar al-Handassa, the winning consortium, received an 86 percent evaluation, according to Mamish. The Egyptian Baysar Consortium came in second, Hamza and Partners came in third, while House of Engineering Expertise (Beit al-Khebra al-Handassy) came in fourth. 

According to Mamish, 46 international firms applied to the bid for the general planning of the project, of which 39 complied with the application guidelines, and of which a list of 13 finalists was put.  Mamish said that the process was implemented confidentially in order to ensure objectivity, with some advice from the World Bank on the best companies to take part in the assessment process. 

Major companies were included in the 13 finalists, such as the Arab Contractors, which Mehleb chaired before becoming prime minister.

Mamish added that the evaluation process ensured that no conflict of interest unfolded while selecting the winning consortium. The selection was conducted through a French firm recommended by the World Bank.

Mamish added that seven legal experts worked together on drafting the Suez Canal legislation, which will be submitted soon to the Ministry of Justice.