A People's Party lawmaker on Sunday called for launching a high-level inquiry into the Punjab government's move to procure 110,000 laptops and what he termed wasting Rs30 billion on the 'sasti roti' programme. Citing a report compiled by the Transparency International Pakistan (TIP), Peerzada Abdul Ali Zakir Usmani, a senior PPP leader, told reporters that that the Punjab government had violated the Punjab Procurement Rules of 2009 while procuring laptops, incurring a loss of at least Rs1.7 billion to the exchequer.
According to him, on April 6, TIP quoted various print media reports in which serious allegations had been levelled against the provincial government. Peerzada, who accused the Punjab chief minister of wasting public funds for personal publicity, said that according to Punjab Procurement Rules of 2009, the P&D Department should have issued tender documents comprising detailed specifications, evaluation criteria and other documents, complying with Rule No23. He said that according to tender documents, the government had sought machines with Core i3 and i5 processors, while procured laptops had Pentium-D processors, costing 70 per cent more than the ones commonly available in the domestic market.