PHOTO: EXPRESS
A two-judge bench, headed by Justice Munib Akhtar, directed the provincial government and KMC's law officers to file their comments by December 23.
The petition was jointly filed by Sajjan Union through its president Zulfiqar Shah, who had taken the provincial and local government authorities to court for allegedly trying to purchase a fire-fighting snorkel at exorbitant rates. He had named the provincial chief secretary, finance secretary, local government secretary, Karachi commissioner, KMC and others as respondents.
The petitioner's lawyer, Nadeem Sheikh, said the Sindh government had awarded a contract to a local company for procurement of a fire-fighting snorkel unit at a cost of Rs570 million. He argued that the Punjab government had also signed an agreement with a foreign company to purchase the snorkel at a comparatively low rate of Rs270 million.
The petitioner contended that the provincial government awarded a contract for procurement of the snorkel to a local company. He recalled that a contract was earlier awarded for such procurement but was suddenly cancelled.
The petitioner alleged that the officials will misappropriate the hard-earned money of the tax payers in the shady procurement deal through kickbacks and commissions, which needs to be investigated. The court was informed that a big city like Karachi needs at least 20 snorkels to cope with fires, but a huge sum money was likely to be misappropriated in just one agreement.
Therefore, the court was pleaded to order an inquiry into the procurement of the fire-fighting snorkel. After hearing initial arguments, the bench issued notices to the provincial chief secretary, the secretaries for finance and local government departments, the Karachi commissioner and KMC authorities to file their comments by December 23.
Published in The Express Tribune, December 17th, 2016.
COMMENTS
Comments are moderated and generally will be posted if they are on-topic and not abusive.
For more information, please see our Comments FAQ