Bureaucracy Pockets Millions in Mega Transport Project By Zeeshan Javaid

Multi-billion rupee project of Lahore’s Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) completed in record time being hasty push of Punjab’s administration is rife with violation of PPRA rules and obvious kick-backs committed by LDA, TEPA and contractors, reveals a study conducted by Pakistan Observer daily.

Punjab government inaugurated the largest development project in the history of provincial capital Lahore with estimated cost of Rs. 30 billion on February 10, 2013 however top guns of Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency (TEPA) and Lahore Development Authority (LDA) managed to use short-cuts to not only accommodate their blue-eyed contractors but also violated the rules defined by Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) for award of contracts or even for making any subsequent changes in the approved contract.

Besides developing the exclusive pathways for the bus service, the second most important component of the megaproject was the installation of Escalators and Platform Screen Doors (PSD) of Lahore’s Metro Bus System. Only in asingle component of escalators, reveals our sources with documentary evidence that an approximate Rs. 250 million went into the corruption bucket of TEPA, LDA and project director.

As per the project documents and tenders were issued by the Punjab Government, 98 escalator units were to beinstalled on 27-kilometre long BRTS project. A number of multi-national companies including Thyssen Krupp, Hyundai, OTIC, Sigma, Merin Ltd. tendered their bids with varying levels of financial projections.

Due to some financial-cum-political compulsions, these tenders were postponed not once but even the second time they were issued by TEPA. However, third time being the lucky time, tendering process went through initial hiccups and finally all these electrical and mechanical giants were invited in October 2012 to finalize Rs. 960 million contracts in favor of the lowest bidder. The favorite in this race happened to be Merin who was asked to provide the machines by the end of last year.

Soon after, sources informed that Merin came up with the excuse that it does not have the financial backing to open a letter of credit to import costly machines from abroad.

Flexing the rules and avoiding to go for re-tendering because of the pressure from Khadim-e-Aala, TEPA’s then Chief Engineer came up with the novel idea of amending the contract on its own by. TEPA’s Chief Engineer then opened a letter of credit in his own name and facilitated the contractor to just help them install the machines once they arrive in Pakistan.

This was done despite the fact that TEPA itself has the capacity to install such machines, yet it kept the contractor as its front man to ensure that its share of supply remains intact ‘Khadim-e-Aala’ receives the report of “all done and on-time”. “If it can purchase the machine then why cannot it install it,” asked a TEPA official.

Interestingly when Zeeshan of Merin Ltd was contacted he openly admitted that Letter of Credit (L/C) was opened in the name of TEPA’s chief engineer, however the equipments had been supplied by Merin Ltd. He even said that “his company only provided services of installation and test run, nothing much.”

Once through with the PPRA violations, TEPA again ignored the fact that as per tendering requirements the contractor was supposed to install escalators for outdoor usage. However a senior engineer in TEPA, which was later confirmed by the contractor himself when questioned by Pakistan Observer, that the supplied and installedescalators were not fit for outdoor usage particularly in rainy and dusty conditions of Lahore. The approval was granted and the contractor was allowed to just fit in the available machines and get the job done to collect its hefty cheques from TEPA.

According to specification, winning bidder was bound to supply escalators of EN-115-2008 model for outdoorinstallation; however the equipment installed are EN-115-1995 model, meant for indoor use. The cost difference between the two ranges between two to three million rupees, revealed the sources.

Since cost of the project remained Rs 960 million, the kick-backs amounting to Rs 250 million seems to have crept in at this time, revealed the sources.

Another twist to this saga is that contractor was not even entitled to get such a huge contract as per the category of his company.

The contractor Merin was an approved C 4 category contractor of Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC), thus can bid only for Rs. 100 million contract from any government entity. How this contractor ended up winning Rs. 960 million bids remains another mystery in this whole scam. The scribe tried to contact Akhtar Saeed, but he could not be reached for comments despite repeated attempts.

by webmaster@insaf.pk (tkiadmin)