Controversy on dam bidding

The long-awaited, long-delayed Mohmand Dam project has once again landed in a controversy as questions are being raised regarding transparency in its bidding process. According to reports, a joint venture of Descon, a firm owned by the Prime Minister’s Adviser, Abdul Razzak Dawood, and a Chinese company by the name of China Gezhouba, is set to secure the contract after the bids had been processed on Monday, December 31.

However, besides the issue of ‘conflict of interest’ due to the stakes of an adviser to the PM in the project, there is also some confusion as to the nature and number of bids. The Water and Power Development Authority (Wapda) chairman has been quoted as saying that a consortium of Descon and China Gezhouba has won the bid for the construction of the dam, adding that other joint venture of the Frontier Works Organisation and the Power China failed to qualify.

The Mohmand Dam project was conceived decades back but the work on it continued to be delayed for one reason or the other. This naturally resulted in the escalation of its cost from one billion dollars in 2003 to what is now estimated at more than three billion dollars. It was after the Supreme Court gave a wake-up call on energy and water crises that the work on the project was expedited.

But the project has once again been caught up in a controversy, besides some confusion over the nature and number of bids. The groundbreaking ceremony of the project was scheduled for Wednesday, January 2, but it has been called off due to some unexplained reasons. With water and power crises getting from bad to worse, any further delay in the execution of the project would be catastrophic. The government must, therefore, come out openly to explain its position and put all speculations to rest so that work on the project is initiated without any further delay.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 3^rd, 2019.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.