Expressing dismay over performance of senior officials of Punjab Saaf Pani Company (PSPC), Chief Minister Muhammad Shahbaz Sharif suspended from services on Tuesday PSPC's Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Waseem Ajmal and Chief (Contracts & Procurement) Miss Shabnam while terminated contract of General Manager Projects and Services Colonel Tahir Maqbool (Retd).
The Chief Minister Punjab has also constituted a four member committee with Chairman Chief Minister's Inspection Team (CMIT) as its convenor while Ahad Khan Cheema, CEO Quaid-e-Azam Thermal Power (Pvt) Limited, Barrister Khalid Waheed, Additional Advocate General Punjab, as its members. While another member will be co-opted by the Convener having experience in EPC Projects/Contracts, said a notification issued from the Chief Minister's Office.
Action has been taken against these officials over discrepancies in the estimates prepared by the Company for installation of water filtration plants in the 10 districts of the province and the quotations received from the companies participating in tender process of the Company, sources told Business Recorder here on Tuesday.
The inquiry committee will fix the responsibility on the relevant members of the PSPC management who deviated from the standard EPC (Engineering, Procurement and Construction) contract practices which resulted either in delays or cost escalation. The inquiry committee will also examine in detail as to how the Request for Proposal (RFP) of EPC Contracts of Phase-I of Punjab Saaf Pani Company were formulated, and what was the extent of due diligence exercised by the Management and Board of PSPC while approving the RFP.
The committee will also examine the mode of payment to the bidders for various components of the transactions and to compare it with the standard EPC contracts payment methodology being observed in the ongoing ICB Contracts of the Punjab Government and Government of Pakistan; particularly see whether the conditionality fixed by PSPC were an improvement on the practices in vogue or otherwise. The committee will also examine how deftly the clause of 20 percent deferred payment on CAPEX was included in the RFP which might have allayed fears of the bidders that their payment would be guaranteed upon successful completion of the project.
The committee has also been tasked to examine as to how deeply and institutionally the Board of PSPC was actually engaged by PSPC management in decision making so that the decisions might be attributed as the collective wisdom of the Board of members.
The committee will also examine whether senior members of the Board from the Government side ever participated in the Board's meetings. It shall also be examined how quickly the minutes of the Board's meetings were circulated amongst the Board's members for information and feedback.
Dr Kamran Shams, Punjab Education Endowment Fund (PEEF) CEO and a member of the Board of Directors of the PSPC has been nominated as the acting CEO while exercise has also been launched to immediately hire services of a new CEO, sources maintained.
The PSPC had already completed its pilot project of installation of water filtration plants in 5 Tehsils of the province and in first phase it was planned to install water filtration in Kasur, Sahiwal, Okara, Faisalabad, Lodhran, Bahawalpur, Rahim Yar Khan, Rajanpur, D.G. Khan and Muzaffargarh.
The company had estimated that these plants will be installed at a cost of Rs 120 billion while in tendering bid the lowest quotes received were over Rs 200 billion, which created a controversy, sources added. They said that it was desired to install water filtration plants in 7500 villages of 35 Tehsils of above mentioned 10 districts during this first phase and estimated completion time was December 2017.
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