Interior Ministry violates rules

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

ISLAMABAD – Interior Ministry has violated Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules while purchasing scanners containing non-intrusive vehicle X-ray Inspection System (NVIS) from China without inviting tenders for open bidding in the deal amounting to Rs1 billion.
It transpired during conversation between the representatives of National Police Bureau (NPB) and PPRA at the meeting of the sub-committee of Senate’s Standing Committee on Interior.
The sub-committee was also informed that the deal would be scrapped for importing NVIS scanners if the Prime Minister did not give approval for the purchase despite the fact that out of the total four scanners that were to be installed in Islamabad, two of those had already been installed at the entry points in the city.
The Project Director (PD), NPB who gave a presentation on the NVIS scanners informed the sub-committee that the purchase was done in a transparent manner.
He informed that NUCTECH, a state owned company of China was the sole manufacturers of NVIS and bidding was not necessary from the sole manufacturers.
He while supporting his point quoted Rule 5 of PPRA, 2004 and said that when an agreement was signed between the two governments, the invitation of tenders was not necessary. “China offered a tied loan facility for the procurement of scanners and other options for similar loan facility were not available at that time”, he added. However, the representative of PPRA refuted his point saying that PPRA Rule 5 of 2004 applied on treaties as well as agreements not on MoUs adding that it did not apply on the purchase of these scanners as the deal was done through an MoU.