A matter of contract: Court petitioned to overrule governor’s freeze on certain ADP 2013-14 projects

According to Governor Abbasi’s orders, projects with less than 50% fund utilisation will be capped, frozen or dropped.

PESHAWAR: A writ petition has been filed at the Peshawar High Court against the governor’s orders on approving some and freezing other projects in the Annual Development Programme (ADP) 2013-14.

The petition was filed by Contractor Mastu Khan through his lawyer Aminur Rehman and states 13 respondents, including the Federation of Pakistan through the States and Frontier Regions secretary, the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa governor through his principal secretary, chief secretary FATA, additional chief secretary FATA among others.

The petition states the government invited tenders for the construction of a one-kilometre-long road from Daryoba to Alam Khan Kuroonan in Frontier Region Bannu and Khan qualified for it, depositing Rs250,000 on December 12, 2013 as a fee.

However, on April 18, the governor issued an order which stated: “All schemes of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) ADP 2013-14 which have been approved or on which work has not yet been started shall stand frozen. Ongoing schemes having reached 70% completion shall be fully funded and shall be completed by June 30 irrespective of the annual phasing.”

According to this order, the government divided all ADP schemes into five categories which would determine whether said scheme would be frozen or continued.

The categories included projects with financial utilisation up to 70% or more, which will then be funded and completed by June 30. Schemes between 50% and 70% will be considered top priority in the ADP for 2014-15. Schemes or projects with financial utilisation at 25% to 50% will be capped after a review of their alternate utilisation and potential level of delivery. If their continuation is deemed necessary, an approval of the governor will be obtained, according to the governor’s order.

Those with financial utilisation up to 25% will stand frozen and remaining projects which still need approval (from the ADP 2013-14) will be considered dropped.

“The project of the petitioner was included in category 4 where utilization is 0-25% and in the report prepared by the quarters concerned, the said project has been shown at 0% utilisation and was frozen in light of the decision,” read the petition.

The petition further adds large amounts of money have been invested by the government in projects/schemes -  right from the planning, preparation of the ADP, to the advertisement and execution of works. “However, the entire process has been nullified in one go without caution and care of law and constitution which has caused a grave miscarriage of justice.”

The petition asked the directives of the governor of K-P on the ongoing schemes and projects be declared illegal, “and of no legal effect and respondents be directed to act in accordance with
the law.”

Published in The Express Tribune, July 1^st, 2014.