Asian Development Bank will provide a soft loan of 220 million dollars and a grant of 80 million dollars for Earthquake Emergency Assistance Project to Pakistan.
Fernando C. Garcia, senior transport specialist of ADB, in his initial study mentioned that the project will rehabilitate and restore infrastructure damaged and destroyed by the earthquake of 8 October 2005 in affected areas of Azad Jammu and Kashmir and North-West Frontier Province, thereby restoring the livelihoods of the people.
He said that the project would contribute to reversing the devastating impact of the earthquake and so revive economic activity and enable people to resume their livelihoods and return to normal life.
This will be achieved primarily through rehabilitating and reconstructing damaged and destroyed infrastructure as quickly as possible, which will particularly assist the poor and other vulnerable people, he added.
The Earthquake Emergency Assistance Project will have two components; first, quick-disbursing, which will be used to finance only imports identified as necessary for an effective recovery programme; and second project components, which will finance rehabilitation and reconstruction of the following sectors: transport; power & health, education; and implementation assistance component with sub-components, legal assistance, governance and institutional building, which will be used to address governance, legal and documentary issues arising from the earthquake's impact benefits and beneficiaries
PRIORITY: "The project will contribute to the government's efforts to regenerate the economy, rehabilitate public infrastructure and utilities, and generate employment," he said, adding "priority will be given to providing work for the affected people, including women, to help establish their livelihoods."
Fernando C. Garcia said that the procurement of goods, works and related services would be carried out in a manner consistent with the simplified and expedient procedures under the ADB Disaster and Emergency Assistance Policy and ADB Guidelines for Procurement and the contemplated implementation schedule.
Local competitive bidding procedures will be the preferred mode of procurement. Procurement of goods and related services estimated to cost more than 1 million dollars and civil works contracts worth over 5 million dollars will be procured following international competitive bidding procedures.
International shopping procedures will be followed for procurement of goods and related services estimated at between 100,000 dollars and 1 million dollars.
For small-specialised equipment and materials contracts valued at less than 100,000 dollars, direct procurement procedures acceptable to ADB will be followed. Civil works contracts estimated to cost 5 million dollars or less will be procured through local competitive bidding procedures acceptable to the ADB. Community participation in the procurement of small works of a simple nature is encouraged, he concluded.
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