Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has reportedly overturned his own directions to adhere to all codal formalities and procedures including adherence to PPRA rules and those of Central Development Working Party''s (CDWP) for "Emergency Response and Social Administration Information System (ER&SIAS)" project with an estimated cost of $150 million.
The project has already been awarded to ZTE Corporation, of China, under a Memorandum of Under-standing (MoU), signed on August 24, 2009. The project has three components-Emergency Response Communication System, support of e-government infrastructure, and support of Information Technology (IT) University. Official documents available with Business Recorder show that the process of implementation of the project, under the MoU, is underway.
The CDWP granted an "in principle approval" of the project and requisite modalities for negotiating concessional loan with the Chinese Exim Bank through Economic Affairs Division (EAD) have been completed. The project has also been included in Pak China Five Year Development Program. The Ministry of Information Technology claims that it followed all codal formalities at every stage and also got due approval from the Prime Minister.
The CDWP had initially directed the MoIT to undertake an independent feasibility study and revise the PC-1 incorporating the result of the study and urged all elements of sustainability, price rationalisation and adherence to the PPRA rules to ensure maximum competition and transparency. Prime Minister, in response to a summary initiated by the MoIT on the MoU for executing commercial contract for the project, had directed to observe the codal formalities and procedures etc, including adherence to PPRA rules.
The project also came under review in Ecnec, where the forum desired that the recommendations of the CDWP including detailed independent feasibility study and maximal competition be complied with. Project for conducting detailed independent feasibility study addressing all recommendations of the CDWP has been approved and the study is expected to be completed in two and a half months after which PC-1 will be presented again to the CDWP and Ecnec.
On November 27, 2010, the Prime Minister desired that the Ministry of Information Technology may proceed in the matter strictly in accordance with the recommendations of the committee constituted by him on integration of GOTA and Safe City Project and ensure full observance of codal formalities and applicable procedure rather than seeking any relaxation in the matter from the Prime Minister.
GOTA is an application that is based on CDMA 2000 technology whereas such an application can run very well on the next generation of technology based on LTE. GOTA can also run very well on PTCL''s EVO network. However, the Prime Minister on September 26, 2011 approved waiver of competitive bidding requirement under PPRA Rules for the ER&SIAS of NTC under MoU with ZTE Corporation of China.
DG, JACC, PC, at a meeting commented that the feasibility study has already been discussed twice in the previous CDWP meetings. And a similar project namely Safe City is also being processed. The official documents further show that PPRA Rules have recently been amended wherein the ECC has been declared the competent forum for seeking waivers etc in case of projects based on inter-governmental agreements and international treaties.
In a meeting chaired by the President Asif Ali Zardari and also attended by the Secretary Finance on August 16, 2011, the request of ZTE Corp for signing of single-party commercial contract after waiver of PPRA was considered. The MoIT was then directed to initiate a summary for the ECC for waiving competition requirements for the project.