Oxygen plants leave France by sea after a year of freight negotiations
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- MRN
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- Health
On 21 July 2022 Mission Rebuild Nepal posted two photographs of crates being loaded into a container in France, and a sentence that had taken thirteen months to earn: the oxygen plants had shipped.
The cargo left by sea rather than by air, bound for the inland port at Birgunj on the Indian border, with an estimated transit of 70 to 75 days. That was the compromise ending to a procurement that had been designed around an airlift.
The equipment had been bought quickly in mid-2021, when Nepal's hospitals were running out of oxygen. Getting it into the country turned out to be the hard part. The Nepali government agreed to pay for air freight; the money then had to travel through the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Health and Population, the cabinet and Nepal Airlines Corporation before a freight company could be engaged.
2021-06-16
The COVID-19 Crisis Management Centre decides to help with air cargo for the plants.
2021-08-19
The cabinet approves the funds and directs Nepal Airlines Corporation to run the procurement.
2021-09-20
Nepal Airlines publishes its tender. The first round fails: the sole quote of about $357,000 exceeds the $275,000 the government had allocated.
2021-11-20
The tender is reissued with relaxed clauses. Flash Freight, the only bidder, wins it.
2022-01-07
Payment to Nepal Airlines does not clear in time, and the airlift booked for 12 January is cancelled.
2022-02
After weeks of lobbying by Mission Rebuild Nepal, the funds finally reach the airline's account.
2022-02-24
Citing the conflict in Ukraine, the freight company says it can no longer move the cargo at the quoted price.
2022-03-05
Mission Rebuild Nepal rejects the force majeure claim in writing, arguing the war had not affected air movement out of France, and asks for a remedy. The company agrees to ship the cargo by sea at its own cost.
2022-03-15
Consortium members agree to pay a further EUR 32,000 to Novair to repack the plants: they had been packaged for air freight, and sea transit risked oxidation and a voided warranty.
2022-04-27
The freight company confirms it will carry the shipment by sea free of charge under its corporate social responsibility programme.
2022-07-21
The plants and filling systems are collected from the factory and loaded.
The chronology above is drawn from the status log the organisation kept on its own website, which it updated in public throughout the delay rather than going quiet. That log is the reason the sequence can be reconstructed at all.
