Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) has received a complaint wherein Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) has been accused of corruption in the award of purchase of navigation channel buoys and in the award of dredging contract for maintenance of navigation channel.
Copies of the complaint have also been sent to PAC, Federal Secretary Ministry of Ports and Shipping, Managing Director PPRA and Auditor General. The complaint notes that GPA has ordered installation of 17 new channel buoys at an exorbitant cost of Rs 67 million. The cost of each buoy comes to Rs 3.94 million as against the market price of Rs 1.65m (inclusive of solar fight).
However, there is no need to replace the channel buoys since the technical life of the buoys is 16 years, and the current buoys were placed in the Gwadar port channel in 2007. Thus the buoys are due for replacement not before 2022. This can be confirmed from the fact that Karachi Port Trust (KPT) replaces the buoys every 15 years. In addition the Chinese contractor had supplied 6 buoys as spares, which are lying unused.
GPA has contracted a local dredging company to do maintenance dredging of the Gwadar port channel with conditions that are against the interest of GPA. One of the terms of the contract is that payment is to be made on the basis of minimum 1 million cubic meters (CBM) of dredging an amount that is arbitrarily fixed without determining the station pattern in the Gwadar harbour. GPA has assigned a minimum quantity so that the dredging company maybe enabled to over bill GPA.
GPA has been negligent in conducting the pre and post monsoon surveys in the last 3 years, which could have determined this pattern. Also before issuing the tender no survey was done to establish a base-line for comparison with any earlier survey to determine the quantity of sedimentation. GPA has not relied on any historical data or statistics to confirm and support its assumption of the 1 million CBM quantities.
In this regard, it is pertinent to compare GPA assessed quantities with the sedimentation rates at KPT. In the Karachi harbour the annual average sedimentation is less than 20 centimetre (cms) and that too in patches, while the total average maintenance dredging quantity is not more than 1 million CBM.
The first important point to note is that the KPT inner and outer harbour''s channels'' total length is approximately 15 kms as compared to GPA''s 4.5 kms. Secondly, the sedimentation rates in KPT are much higher due to its location in the Liyari river estuary and also because of the effect of the south west monsoon during which heavy sedimentation is deposited in the entrance channel off Manora.
In comparison Gwadar does not receive sediments from any creek system as in Karachi port, nor is it affected by the monsoon in a similar manner as it is near the Straits of Hormuz also it is located in inside a bay where the tidal current pattern are such that the sediments are naturally carried out of the harbour approach channel based upon above it can be estimated that the Gwadar port dredging quantities cannot be more than 10 percent of Karachi''s, ie approximately 100,000 CBM and not 1,000,000 CSM. Corruption may be as high as Rs 297 million in the award of the dredging contract.