Purchase rules ignored for Chinese firm

Gilani scraps written recommendations, relaxes Public Procurement Rules (2004) to directly but from a Chinese firm.

ISLAMABAD:

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has quietly scrapped the written recommendations of a high level technical committee from the Planning Commission that advised advertising international tenders for the $124 million “Safe City Islamabad” project and has relaxed Public Procurement Rules (2004) to directly buy from a Chinese firm.

The prime minister decided that his government would not call for international tenders for the project as earlier advised by a high level inter-ministerial technical committee led by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Division. Gilani has now brought his decision to relax the PPR rules before the cabinet for its endorsement.

The prime minister is said to have been convinced by senior officials to go with the Chinese company because the Chinese government was willing to finance the project. Official sources, however, said that the rates offered to the Government of Pakistan under this deal would be not as competitive as could have been obtained if international tenders were floated.

The Safe City project was conceived in 2009 as a high-tech information gathering system to coordinate the government’s counter-terrorism efforts by bringing together the capabilities of the various law enforcement and intelligence agencies as well as installing sophisticated equipment.

The project initially became controversial after the machinery imported from China was deemed to be sub-standard by the ministry of information technology.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 10^th, 2011.