The National Insurance Company Limited (NICL) has been accused of blatant violation of Public Procurement Rules (PPR) 2004 in inviting tenders for procurement of 100-200 acres plot for housing society and 4000-10000 sq yds plots for commercial development in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore. This is "in total violation of PPR-2004," according to Transparency International Pakistan (TIP).
Syed Adil Gilani, Chairman of TIP, in a letter sent to the Chairman of NICL, Karachi, has reminded him that TIP had been objecting for last many months "on your procurements" and these objections were also sent to NICL by Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) for clarification. NICL has not yet justified its actions are in compliance with PPRA rules.
It has been reported that the amount of these alleged mis-procurements, listed below, under PPRA rule No 50 ranges from Rs 3 billion to Rs 5 billion, Gilani said in his letter.
-- Selection of consultants for Heating, Ventilation & Air-conditioning (HAVC) works.
-- Award of HAVC contract to Roma Business Consultants, reported at Rs 120 million higher cost, against consultants recommendations and also not to a licensed contractor.
-- Purchase in 2009 of office space in Dubai, and
-- Purchase in 2009 of plots in Lahore.
The violations being committed by NICL in the current tender for procurement of land have been itemised as follows:
-- Rule 13 requires minimum 15 days time for submission of tender after tender notice is published in the press, whereas, NICL has allowed only seven days.
-- Tender documents shall be issued under rule no. 23 which shall include all relevant information including detailed evaluation criteria, bid award method, signing of integrity pact, rights of bidders for compliance on evaluation report prior to award, declaration of evaluation report before the award of contract etc. NICL is not complying with this requirement.
-- Under rule no. 29, NICL shall formulate unambiguous evaluation criteria and inform bidders, and under rule. 30, the bid will only be evaluated in accordance with the declared evaluation criteria. NICL by not announcing any evaluation criteria is reported to be manipulating the procurement, which if correct, has to be dealt with under rule 2(i) corrupt and fraudulent practices.
In accordance with PPR 2004, rule 11, NICL is required to provide clear authorisation and delegation of powers for different categories of procurement, and shall only initiate procurements once approval of the competent authorities concerned has been acquired.
Gilani said TIP would like to know whether NICL has complied with rule no. 11 and taken approval of authorisation from the competent authority including condo nation/exemption from compliance of relevant PPR 2004 (be it Board of Directors or PPRA under the Rules of Business), in case of previous four procurements mentioned above and from the violations in the present procurements.
Procurement rules 2004 have eliminated all discretions in procurement process and made corruption low profit and high risk business, Gilani said. Copies of the letter have been sent to:
Prime Minister''s secretariat, Chairman, PAC, National Assembly, Auditor General of Pakistan, Chairman, NAB, Registrar, Supreme Court of Pakistan, Managing Director, PPRA and NICL Board members who have been reminded that "you all as Directors of NICL are public servants within the meaning of section 21 of the Pakistan Penal Code, and accountable for public funds expenditure, under NAB Ordinance 1999.