NHA ordered to maintain status quo in M-9 highway

Construction company takes NHA to court over flaws in contract awarding process.

KARACHI: The Sindh High Court (SHC) has directed the authorities to maintain status quo in respect of awarding tenders for construction of the Karachi-Hyderabad M-9 highway.

The temporary restraining order came on a lawsuit filed by the National Tiles and Ceramics, which took the National Highway Authority (NHA) and competitor construction companies to court over alleged irregularities in the contract awarding process.

The court was informed that the NHA had awarded the contract for the conversion of the Karachi-Hyderabad Super Highway into a six-lane motorway to the Frontier Works Organisation and two other companies through a questionable bidding process.

It was alleged that the process of awarding the contract was distorted, as the plaintiff had offered the lowest bid but the multi-billion rupee project was still awarded to the highest bidder. This is a violation of the bidding rules and will also cause serious losses to the national exchequer, the plaintiff argued.

The court was, therefore, requested to declare the concession agreement of March 10 as illegal and restrain the respondents from carrying on with the construction work.

During the hearing on Wednesday, the lawyers representing the NHA and others defendants requested time to file a counter affidavit.

Allowing request, the bench fixed hearing on April 21. Till then, the parties were ordered to maintain status quo.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 1^st,  2016.