New Islamabad airport: Project beset by irregularities from the outset, says SC

Says poor performance, mismanagement caused delays.

ISLAMABAD:

The Supreme Court released the detailed judgment on the New Benazir Bhutto International Airport (NBBIAP) case on Tuesday, explaining the reasons behind its short order released earlier in September.

The court, in its detailed order, noted that the project had been beset by irregularities and corrupt practices, which led to delays in its completion.

“The project of the New Benazir Bhutto International Airport Project, Islamabad (NBBIAP), prima facie, suffers from illegalities, irregularities, corruption and corrupt practices, and the delay caused in its completion [was] on account of illegal deeds, omissions and commissions of the consultants Louis Burger and all other concerned persons who were responsible for selecting the site, preparing the designs and also awarding contracts to the contractors,” the 82-page judgment read.



It added that in most of the joint ventures part of NBBIAP, the lead partner either remained absent or did not participate with men and material as per the contract, ‘most probably in collusion with local partners’.

“Due to the extremely poor performance of the project management consultant, coupled with mismanagement and favouritism to selected contractors by the concerned officials of Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), the project right from its onset, suffered tremendous setbacks, causing a grave loss to the national exchequer.”

In its short order on the case, the court had declared the appointment of Air Marshal (retd) Khalid Chaudhry as the CAA director general ‘non-transparent, illegal, void and in violation of the laid down rules’.

“The federal government is required to take all necessary steps to ensure the completion of the project as early as could be possible. However, it is made clear that subject to the contractual agreements, the consultants, designers and all other contractors to whom contracts have been awarded shall continue to complete the work,” stated the short order, as reproduced in the detailed judgment.

The detailed order also discussed the role of the court and noted that “it is not for the court to determine whether a particular policy or a particular decision taken in the fulfillment of that policy is fair.”

“It [the court] is only concerned with the manner in which those decisions have been taken.”

Published in The Express Tribune, November 20^th, 2013.