Commissioner orders Rawalpindi's Ring Road relaunch

RDA criticised for consultancy contract add without authorisation

RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Commissioner Joudat Ayaz has ordered Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) to revisit the consultancy contract of Ring Road and the re-launch the process in a new manner.

In this regard, Ayaz, who is also the project director of Ring Road has written a letter to RDA Director General (DG) Mehr Hayat Lek in which he said that the current contract has raised serious questions on transparency.

He added that the marking criteria in the contract were defective for the bidders after which they would file their expression of interest.



The commissioner identified that the given experience criteria were also defective. He added that RDA did not take his permission before advertising the consultancy contract, and the advertisement, was displayed without mentioning the conditions for deployment of professional staff for the project.

Apart from the audit statement, the financial ability of the contractor was not determined either, he added.

The commissioner highlighted the unprofessional attitude of RDA and said that the Ring Road project was of public interest and it should not be delayed any further at any cost. The RDA is an executive agency of the project and had issued a Request for Proposal to six firms which fit the pre-qualification process.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 31^st, 2019.