Controversial LED project hits legal snag

Court restrains CDA from going through with the expensive project.

ISLAMABAD:

A controversial project aimed at replacing streetlights around the capital city has hit a legal snag. The Islamabad High Court (IHC) on Monday restrained the Capital Development Authority from executing the Rs6.5 billion project under which 65,000 conventional streetlights in the city would be replaced with Light Emitting Diode (LED) ones.

Justice Azim Khan Afridi admitted a petition filed by two lawyers challenging the project and fixed its hearing for next week. Advocates Muhammad Naseem and Shajjar Abbas had filed the petition on May 20 seeking cancellation of the costly project to prevent misappropriation of public funds. Government and independent watchdogs also raised questions over the project.

The petitioners contended that the CDA had awarded the contract to a company named Oslo Lighting Solutions, alleging that the company is backed by an influential businessman who has close ties with the upper echelon of the ruling party.

The petitioners maintained that during a meeting in October 2010, the Planning Commission’s Central Development Working Party had rejected the project and marked some observations on the proposal including on the unit price of each LED light. The financial rate of return of the project was not favourable, but this was not considered by the CDA, Abbas said. The civic agency was advised to consult the law ministry to ensure transparency after Transparency International (TI) also expressed concern over the opaque manner in which the contract was awarded, he added.

According to TI, the CDA is procuring LEDs at Rs150,000 per piece which is seven times as much as the market rate of Rs20,000. TI said the entire cost of the project should not be higher than Rs1.36b if calculated using the lower rate.

The petitioners also argued that the National Accountability Bureau had raised objections over the project’s tendering process and that the Rs6.5b price tag would have to be footed by the government as the Asian Development Bank had already refused to finance it.

The project was also discussed by the Senate Committee on the Cabinet Division in a recent meeting, during which the committee chairperson Shahid Hussain Bugti referred to it as a “scam in the offing”.

Unscheduled power outages

Meanwhile in another case, Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui issued a notice to the Islamabad Electric Supply Company (IESCO) chairman in response to a petition filed by an Islamabad resident challenging unscheduled loadshedding.

Petitioner Iftikhar Hussain’s counsel Advocate Yasir Mehmood Chaudhry contended there had been 9 to 11 hours of power outages in parts of the city, which were making the lives of common citizens miserable.

He maintained that due to unannounced loadshedding, people were facing increasing problems including acute water shortages. He prayed the court to direct the respondent to stop the unannounced loadshedding. After the preliminary hearing, the court directed IESCO to send a concerned official to appear in person before the court on June 21 and explain why the unannounced power outages were taking place.

Published In The Express Tribune, June 19^th, 2012.