Court call: KWSB barred from hiring ‘more’ audit firms

A company has gone to the Sindh High Court claiming it has already been shortlisted.

KARACHI: For now, the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB) cannot hire any auditing firm until January 11 next year.

This temporary stay order  by the Sindh High Court (SHC) came on a petition filed by M/s Qavi and Company Chartered Accountants after it went to the court against the KWSB among others.

In May 2011, the water board invited expressions of interest from auditing firms to review its accounts for the years 2006-07, 2007-08 and 2009-10. The petitioner was shortlisted but the KWSB re-advertised the tender through newspapers on December 9 and fixed December 24 as the new deadline.

The authorities want to award the same contract to some other party, submitted the petitioner, claiming that this violated the terms of the Sindh Public Procurement Act, 2009, and the Sindh Public Procurement Rules, 2010.

The petitioner’s lawyer appealed to the court to declare the tender re-advertisement illegal and direct the KWSB to award the contract in accordance with the laws.



After the preliminary hearing, Justice Maqbool Baqir, who headed the bench, issued notices to the Sindh advocate general, chief secretary, the public procurement regulatory authority director, the Karachi administrator and the KWSB for January 11, 2013.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 22^nd, 2012.