Not very transparent

Wapda awarded the 106MW contract to an Austrian Andritz Hydro in a tender which got only a single bid.

Anybody who imagined that the new government would herald a time of diminished corruption seems to have been sadly mistaken. Government departments and agencies are hard-wired to do things the wrong way, and if there is a chance to deceive, reduce transparency or play the ‘favourites’ card, one may be assured that they will take it. A case in point is the tendering and contract award process for the Golen Gol energy generation project near Chitral city. The entire process has all the transparency of a block of concrete. The rules of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) have been violated, with Wapda having awarded the contract for the 106MW project to an Austrian company which, it turns out, was the only contender for the job.

Wapda moved with uncharacteristic swiftness, with the technical evaluation of the project, involving the review of thousands of documents, carried out in less than 24 hours — a physical impossibility. The reason for the fast footwork seems to be that Wapda, for unclear reasons, wanted to give preference to the Austrian company. Prior to this, there had been a smoke-and-mirrors exercise involving an illegal letter of intent (LoI) issued to a Norwegian company that was subsequently suspended by the Islamabad High Court. Despite the ban, Wapda issued bidding documents to this company, failing to advertise the tenders in local and international media as required by the donor agency. It now transpires that there were seven firms that had purchased the bidding documents, but they all mysteriously vanished leaving the Austrian company the sole contender. A mighty wall of obfuscation surrounds the entire business. Unsurprisingly, the director of public relations at Wapda declined to comment on the issue, which suggests that perhaps there is something to hide. Anywhere else but Pakistan heads would roll. As things are, expect nothing but silence.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 14^th, 2013.

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