The Supreme Court on Sunday issued notices to Secretaries of Ministry of Petroleum, Finance and Economic Affairs, managing director of Pakistan Electric Power Regulatory Authority (Pepra), Chairman of SSGC over the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) contract, and asked them to appear on Monday (today).
The court also ordered the incumbent Secretary Petroleum to ensure that notices were also served on the bidding parties of the LNG contract (M/S Elengy of Engro Pakistan, GIP of Turk Consortium and Pakistan Gasport) through his own sources via e-mail, fax or telephone by March 11.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry took suo motu notice after receiving a note from the Registrar's office on the basis of news reports published on Saturday and Sunday regarding the LNG contract. The Registrar's Office submitted a note relating to the Economic Co-ordination Committee's (ECC) failure to take a decision on the award of a multi-billion-dollar contract for the import of 400 million cubic feet of LNG and left the matter to the Federal Cabinet to take the decision.
Citing a news report published in an English daily on March 9, the Registrar said in the note that an immediate meeting of the Federal Cabinet was likely to be convened early next week to resolve the controversy after some members of the ECC questioned the summary submitted by the Petroleum Ministry to declare Pakistan Gasport consortium as the lowest bidder by declaring another bidder non-compliant.
Reportedly, some of the participants said the bidding results had not been approved by the board of directors of the SSGC and the summary seeking approval of Gasport Consortium as lowest successful bidder was prepared in haste. Furthermore, Waqar A Malik, the Chairman of the SSGC's Board tendered his resignation on March 7 after the board was asked to declare the Gasport Consortium as the successful bidder.
The note maintained: "Malik said that even though Engro Terminal had quoted two separate benchmarks for LNG import price, its final bid price calculated by the SSGC's bid committee was on the lower side when compared with Gasport".
The Registrar Office also submitted a clipping of another English daily that carried a news report on Sunday, stating that the Federal Cabinet was likely to approve next week the LNG tender for the import of 400 MMCFD LNG on the basis of recommendations of SSGC's Board of Directors and the ECC of the Cabinet.
It added that the news story goes on to state that three bidders have been technically declared qualified by the SSGC and their Consultants including M/S Elengy of Engro Pakistan, GIP of Turk Consortium and Pakistan Gasport of Iqbal Z Ahmed.
Financial bids have been evaluated and the SSGC Board is expected to recommend the lowest bidder in their meeting scheduled for Monday (today) on the basis of which the Federal Cabinet is likely to take a final decision before its dissolution on March 16, the Registrar office said.
The Chief Justice passed an order after going through the contents of the note: "I have perused the press clippings as well as note of the Registrar containing inter alia relevant extract from the Judgement of the Court (PLD 2010 SC 731) - It is to be seen as to whether the contract of LNG is being awarded in a transparent manner or otherwise, in view of the allegations reported in the newspapers- the issue may therefore be registered as Constitution Petition under Article 184(3) of the Constitution and fixed for March 11."
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