Sindh: Rules violated for awarding multi-billion-rupee project

[Naveed Yaseen]

Minister concerned also interfered with burns, trauma centre for industrial workers in Karachi

Friday, October 23, 2009
By Tahir Hasan Khan

Karachi

Rules and procedures for awarding government contracts have been violated again by officials concerned, The News has learnt. This time around, regulations set by the Pakistan Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) were flouted while awarding the contract for a Sindh Workers Welfare Board project worth billions of rupees.

Sources said that the rules set by PPRA for awarding contracts were violated on the orders of a certain federal minister, who wanted to award the contract of this project directly. Insiders claimed that authorities first tendered the contract through advertisements; all legal procedures were completed, and more than 15 contractors qualified for the project as per PPRA rules.

Rules were violated later, authorities claimed, for the sake of some handsome “rewards”.

This contract was scheduled to be awarded last month, but was cancelled at the last minute, after interference from Islamabad. The new date is now October 27, when the contract will allegedly be awarded to “friends” of the federal minister concerned. Sources told The News that the company in question could not have received the contract under PPRA rules.

Officials said that earlier, bids for the construction of 2,300 flats were invited on September 9, and the contract was scheduled to be awarded on September 28. The process, however, was halted two days before the due date through a notification, and qualified contractors were told that they will be informed about details “in the due course of time”.

The authorities then retendered the bid through advertisements published in one local daily, even though under the law, tenders for big projects should be published in all Urdu and English national newspapers.

As part of the project, 1,024 flats will be constructed in Sukkur, 512 in Badin (hometown of Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza), 512 flats will be constructed in Shaheed Benazirabad (formerly Nawabshah, the hometown of President Asif Ali Zardari), and 256 flats will be constructed in Tando Muhammad Khan.

Awarding the contract for this multi-billion project in violation of PPRA rules will be tantamount to serious corruption.

Insiders said, however, that this is not the first case of its kind. The Burns and Trauma Centre, initially designed for industrial workers in Karachi, has now been shifted to Sukkur, the hometown of the same federal minister who is said to have interfered in the workers’ welfare project. After shifting the centre to Sukkur, the cost for the project was also increased to Rs2,700 million, from the initial Rs532 million.

The authorities first changed the project consultant, who had initially designed the burns and trauma centre in Karachi for 1.95 per cent of the total cost. The new consultant, who was appointed on the directives of the federal minister, is charging seven per cent of the total cost of the project. The purpose of changing the consultant was ostensibly to enhance the budget for this project, and to shift it from Karachi to Sukkur.

Insiders told The News that the centre was imperative for Karachi, because the city has a large number of industrial units and factories, which employ millions of workers. Sukkur, on the other hand, is a small city, with a few factories and small units, which barely employ a few hundred workers.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=204602