ISLAMABAD: While chiding the government claims of introducing good governance in the country, the Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL), a leading public sector oil and gas company, has grossly violated the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules in award of its three contracts to foreign suppliers, valuing $ 27 million.
Sources told NEWSMAN that PPL has awarded contracts to three foreign companies for supply of hot oil package, refrigeration package and amine processing unit package whose value, as per official document, stands around $ 27 million.
Instead ensuring transparency and strictly following the PPRA rules relating to such procurements in award of contracts to some foreign suppliers, PPL has dared to overlook the entire procurement procedure a public sector company like PPL is required to follow to ensure that each penny it spend on buying of any material or equipment is properly reviewed and assessed before going for a final decision.
The amount of $ 27 million on procurement of three packages is huge as far as Pakistan is concerned as Islamabad is under huge financial pressure due to lavish spending on such adventures in the past. It’s the people of this country who face brunt of such murky procurements as the funds utilized for such buying come from the national exchequer.
The official documents, made available to NEWSMAN, suggest there was hardly any emergency in buying of all three packages ..hot oil package, refrigeration package and amin processing unit package , but PPL restraint it from following set procurement procedure like issuing press tender so that maximum competition is generated for getting good price and likewise it, as a public sector company, should have strictly followed PPRA rules relating to procurements in this case.
In response to a questionaire, PPL managing director, Moeen Raza said “ We as a public sector company follow PPRA rules in award of contracts for all procurements ”.
Moeen Raza’s claim, however, does not match to the details given by his company in the contract award performa issued to the successful bidders.
The contract award performa clearly suggests, PPL did not follow any procurement rule of PPRA that is enough to cast doubts on the claims made by Moeen Raza in response to NEWSMAN’s questionnaire.
The same performa also indicates that in none of three contracts awarded to foreign companies PPRA rules were followed.
Gross violation of procurement rules by PPL is a big challenge for Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government ,which is taking credit of having a transparent system in place to ensure that each penny of public money is utilized in complete judicious manner. It also invites attention of the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) which is advocating the culture of “No to corruption”.
