1.) Military Value

The cost of each of the bids was made up of the platform cost - proposed by the bidders - and the combat suite. The ceiling price of the latter was set by the navy at R1470m in February 1998, and it was meant to be provided largely by South African suppliers led by Altech Defence Systems (ADS). Bazan's offer was, at $423m (excluding the combat suite), the most inexpensive - a full $110m cheaper than the Meko A200. See Table 1.

The Meko A200 came out on top on the military performance evaluation with a score of 810.5 out of 1080, just ahead of the 590B's 766.6. Thus, the Meko A200 had a 5% better military performance than the 590B but at 25% greater cost on the platform. Military Value was determined by dividing military performance over cost.

Military Value = Military Performance
                                            Cost

On this measure Bazan's 590B came out on top with a normalised rating of 100 compared to 91.9 for the Meko. See Table 2. The differential would have been greater had the ‘fixed' combat suite price not been included in the cost. If the military value had been judged on the cost of the platform alone the Meko A200 would have had a rating of about 84 as opposed to the 100 of the 590B. It turned out, in any event, that the combat suite price was not fixed. After the GFC had been named the preferred bidder, the price of the combat suite was dramatically inflated (by 100%). It was only brought down again by stripping out functionality.

2.) National Industrial Participation (NIP)
The Industrial Participation (IP) ratings were determined by a combination of Defence Industrial Participation (DIP) and National Industrial Participation (NIP).

Industrial Participation = Defence Industrial Participation (DIP) + National Industrial Participation (NIP). According to the Auditor General "no approved value system could be obtained" for the NIP assessment.

However, an "economic value system" was drafted by Allan Hirsch and Vassie Ponsamy of the Department of Trade & Industry. "This was the first value system they ever drafted as the NIP projects had never before been used to select preferred bidders." The evaluation of the NIP proposals was carried out by Cassie Nakooda under the supervision of Ponsamy.

Although the Bazan and GFC bids had similar offers in dollar terms the GFC was given over double the score by the DTI. The GFC's NIP offer was made up of a promise to build a "mini steel mill", a "crank shaft foundry", and to purchase "automotive components" from South Africa.

3.) Defence Industrial Participation
In terms of the Request for Final Offer bidders were required to offer a minimum of ten percent counter-trade on the platform and sixty percent on the combat suite. Bazan had by far the best DIP offer both qualitatively and quantitatively. It offered 21.9% direct DIP on the platform, as well as indirect DIP to the value of $406m. It was also the only bidder which provided a detailed business plan and commitment to the 60% DIP on the combat suite.

By contrast the GFC offered only 11.5% direct DIP on the platform, and only $6m indirect DIP. In its original bid it did not provide "a bank or sovereign guarantee to the value of 5 percent of the DIP commitment." It also failed to supply a business plan for the DIP on the combat suite element. Yet, when it came to evaluating the DIP offers on the combat suite, all the bidders were given the same score on that component as Bazan.

Despite the poor DIP offer from the GFC, and its non-compliance with a series of requirements, it was still given a remarkably high rating of 81 as opposed to the 100 of Bazan. The Auditor General's investigation later found that there had been a calculation error in the score allocated to the GFC - and it should have received a rating of 71 to Bazan's 100.

4.) Industrial participation
In the original assessment the NIP and DIP ratings were combined to give an overall industrial participation (IP) rating. The GFC received the best score and a rating of 100. Bazan came second with a rating of 82. However, if the DIP had been calculated correctly, Bazan would have received 86,5 points to the GFC's 100.

5.) Financing evaluation
Under the financing evaluation system a score of one to 1 to 5 was given on each criterion with 1 being "excellent" and 5 being "poor." According to the Auditor General's report "the bidder with the best financing proposal would receive the lowest score in view of financing forming the denominator" in the (original) formula. GEC received the best score on this index, then DCN, then Bazan. According to the Auditor General, GFC's offer was the worst and it was ranked fourth.