The Trading Corporation of Pakistan (TCP) is violating Public Procurement Rules, 2004 (PPR-2004) in procuring services for handling and transportation of imported commodities like wheat, fertiliser, rice, sugar, etc to upcountry destinations.
According to sources, as per PPR-2004, open tender process and competitive bidding are required by government organisations, like TCP, for procurement of any services costing more than Rs 100,000.
They said PPR-2004 also provides that open tender should specify the nature of required jobs/functions and the concerned institution (TCP) through open competitive bidding would also invite rates from the participants for their services.
Further, they said, according to PPR-2004, enlistment of various service providers should be done through advertising their criteria for pre-qualification, inviting their professional and financial qualifications simultaneously, and by checking the required documents by a committee of directors and representatives of the concerned ministries in a transparent way.
But, they said, TCP was hiring different agencies for undertaking various jobs, including transportation, stevedoring, clearing and forwarding, surveying at ports and godowns, shipping agents, pre-shipment inspection, tally operation, labour in godowns and other places etc without following the Procurement Rules. TCP, sources said, in a single operation of wheat, fertiliser and sugar during 2008-09 had paid more than Rs 100,000 (sometimes over a million rupees) to a single agency of service provider for accomplishing the above-mentioned jobs.
They said that a more serious violation of PPR-2004 was that TCP was fixing rates, often exorbitant and much higher than the prevailing market rates, with the enlisted organisations either through negotiations or inviting quotations from them.
Terming the so-called criteria of TCP for enlisting the service organisations as an eyewash, sources claimed that it was solely the discretion of the Corporation chief to enlist favourite agencies. They said such malpractices were not only making mockery of the PPR-2004, but were also inflicting huge financial losses on the already ailing national exchequer in each operation of TCP.
TCP Chairman Mohammad Saeed, however, rejected these claims as "insubstantial", saying that the main job was to hire transporters, which was being done as per rules. "This may be a mere fabrication, and has no substance, indeed," he added.
When asked if he was the sole authority to select the service providers, he said: "This is not true; in fact, we have a committee to decide these issues."
He said TCP was pre-qualifying organisations through tendering, and was taking rates from all parties through open bidding process. The TCP chief, however, acknowledged that extra charges were necessary in abnormal situations, like the Balochistan based Gwadar port where nobody was ready to work on normal market rates.