LAHORE: Justice Muzamal Akhtar Shabbir of the Lahore High Court on Friday issued notices to the Punjab primary and secondary healthcare department and others on a petition challenging the bid invited by the World Bank-funded Punjab Human Capital Investment Programme (PHCIP) for hiring the services of 310 service providers for seven selected districts in Punjab.

Well Wisher Security Services moved the petition through its counsel Ch Shoaib Saleem advocate.

The petitioner pleaded before the court that as per the biding documents the lowest bid must be evaluated and compared with others on the basis of provincial labour laws which was a mandatory requirement also under Rule 55 of PPRA. Ch Shoaib advocate argued that the bid declared successful was patently illegal as it offered the wages for each security official/caretaker less than the minimum wages as per the notification of the Punjab Labour Department.

He said the Punjab Human Capital Investment Project (PHCIP) is funded by the World Bank, so the health department was required to have a complete transparency with strict adherence to local laws to make this project a success story to have more funding by the international donors.

The counsel further argued that the service provider was required to have its security staff certificates of training in fire fighting, anti-terrorism, parking management and crowd management but the ill intention of the health department speaks volumes about the fact that they wanted the services of unskilled staff just to throw a dust into the eyes of the observers at the international level that a project funded by the World Bank is taking care of the all standards.

The petitioner company said that as per the bidding documents, the scope of services under operational responsibilities, the security provider is under obligation to abide by the labour laws including the minimum wages, social security and EOBI to its employees and failure of which can lead to termination of the contract, how come that the health department has to get the final contract if it does not fulfil the criterion of the labour laws even at the timing of offering the bid. The petitioner questioned the legality of the bid evaluation process and the criterion on the bases of which intention to award the contract has been shown by the health department.

The court after inclining to the arguments of the petitioner’s counsel, issued notices to the respondents for Monday by observing that the final rights of the parties will determined subject to the final outcome of the court order.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023