LAHORE:Amid the allegations of irregularities levelled by contractors, Lahore Development Authority (LDA) opened the tenders of first phase of 4000 apartments to be constructed in LDA City New Pakistan Apartments project.
The tenders for Package One for the construction of 4,000 apartments were opened here on Wednesday, said LDA officials in a statement. They said two tenders were opened for construction of 15 blocks in Package One. There will be 32 apartments in each block. Thus, tenders were opened for construction of 960 apartments under Single Stage Two Envelope process.
On the other hand, Constructors Association of Pakistan (CAP) sent a legal notice to Chief Engineer LDA raising questions about the announced tendering process. The title of the legal notice was irregularities in tendering process. In the legal notice, CAP said that it has found several irregularities in the announced tendering process. They claimed that while tendering works, the rule of Single Stage Envelope process should be followed while in this tender LDA adopted Single Stage Two Envelope process, which was for the procurement of goods under rule 37 Punjab Procurement Rules 2014. They said by adopting this process for tendering construction of flats, LDA committed mis-procurement under Sec 2(J) of Punjab Procurement Regulatory Authority Act 2009.
CAP further alleged that LDA can’t bypass the rules and regulations of Pakistan Engineering Council and license holders of PEC can’t be stopped to take part in any tender by imposing clauses not allowed by PEC.
CAP’s notice further alleged that under sec 2(1)(i) Punjab Procurement Rules 2014 every interested person/firm/company can take part in competitive bidding and rule 34 of Punjab Procurement Rules 2014 didn’t permit inclusion of difficult and discriminative conditions in such bidding.
In the letter, they accused LDA for including difficult conditions, which will only support big contractors. They alleged that adding difficult conditions was the joint conspiracy of Chief Engineer LDA and big contractors, who will later ‘support’ each other resulting in failure of this important project. They demanded the LDA to withdraw the discriminative and difficult conditions from the bidding, which are also against the Article 18 of the Constitution of Pakistan, which provides right of business to every citizen.
CAP’s letter concluded that the association will approach legal forums in case LDA continue to violate the PAPRA rules and conducted the tendering process without amending the clauses pointed out by CAP.
Meanwhile, LDA while completely ignoring the legal notice of CAP carried out the tender opening, which was supervised by Engineer Amir Riaz Qureshi, Technical Member, LDA Governing Body. Chief Engineer Abdul Razzaq Chauhan, Director Finance M Akhtar and Director Audit Javed Akhtar were also present on the occasion. As per LDA’s press statement, two companies participated in the tender. One bid was submitted by NLC while the other bid was submitted by Hanan Zelkan JV. Technical bids of both the companies were opened. Financial bids will be opened after evaluation of technical bids.
Speaking on the occasion, Engineer Amir Riaz Qureshi said that LDA Vice Chairman SM Imran was personally overseeing the LDA City New Pakistan Apartments project. In the first phase, work for construction of 4,000 apartments will begin this month.
The project will be worked on in a transparent manner and all resources will be utilized for its speedy completion. He said that further tenders for construction work would be opened on February 17, 13 and 20 and tender opening date will not be extended.
When contacted, LDA's spokesperson said that LDA has followed all rules and regulations under PAPRA law for the project. Over the objections and allegations raised by CAP in its legal notice, the spokesperson said that no violation of PAPRA rules was done.
Over a question of adding difficult and discriminative conditions in the tender, he said LDA simply wanted to bring sound parties for the tender and that was why the condition of previous work record and financial health of bidders was added in the tender. He further said that the LDA management as well as the Punjab government will closely monitor the project to make it a success.
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