Unfit: IGP cancels contract with firm supplying police uniforms

Decision taken after inquiry committee finds firm violating terms of contract.

LAHORE: Punjab Police Inspector General Mushtaq Ahmad Sukehra has cancelled the contract of a private firm supplying uniforms for policemen.

The decision was taken after a high-level committee investigated allegations that the firm was not using quality fabric.

The firm was given the contract in 2009 to stitch 60 per cent of the uniforms supplied for policemen in the Lahore district. Sub-Inspector Khawar Iqbal, who is in charge of the uniforms store at the Police Lines, said that a majority of trousers delivered by the firm had no buckram.

“Most of the policemen complained that the waist of the trousers could not be altered,” he said.

Iqbal said that the inquiry committee had found that the length of trousers was not 42 inches as specified in the contract, but 37 inches.

“Instead of using 1.5 metre cloth to stitch the trousers, they were using one metre. The buckram used for shirt collars was substandard,” said Iqbal. He said that the cloth used for trousers was not the same. “The stitching of the trousers was also substandard,” he said.

SP Omar Saeed, who was part of the inquiry committee, said that he had noticed deficiencies in the uniforms during a routine visit to the store. “I inspected some of the stitched trousers and found that the cloth used was substandard,” he said.

Saeed said that the firm had been provided 34,689 metres khaki cloth to stitch 23,126 trousers in 2013-14.

“They were to complete the trousers by June 30, 2014. However, they only delivered 9,008 trousers. Even those were substandard.”

Farrukh Baig of the Best Way Firm refused to comment on the findings of the inquiry committee.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 25^th, 2015.