ISLAMABAD: Another shocking scandal unearthed in the National Highway Authority where Rs.2.01 billion have been paid to the M/s ZKB and M/s China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) for mobilization on site, which was actually not available for work.
The contractors parked this money in their accounts for more than a year and supposedly earn interest over it as site was not cleared for mobilization.
A parliamentary forum on Tuesday expressed serious displeasure over the release of an unauthorized mobilization advance of Rs2.01 billion to private contractors engaged in the construction of an additional carriageway on N-55 from Shikarpur to Rajanpur.
The mobilization advance was released against Lot-I (Shikarpur to Kandkot) and Lot-II (Kandkot to Kashmore) of the Trance-II of the Central Asian Regional Economic Corridor, which is being funded by the Asian Development Fund (ADB).
A PAC meeting was held at Parliament House under the chairmanship of Senator Shahida Begum, where audit objections related to the Ministry of Communications were discussed.
Audit officials informed the committee that the National Highway Authority (NHA) had awarded contracts for the N-55 Shikarpur-Rajanpur project to M/s ZKB and M/s China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) in August and November 2022, respectively. The contracts were awarded at a total cost of Rs20.12 billion.
The contractors were subsequently paid mobilization advances amounting to Rs2.01 billion in April 2023. However, they could not mobilize at the project site until March 2024 as the land required for execution of the project had not been cleared.
The audit officials observed that the NHA had awarded the contracts without having clear possession of the required land and had also released the mobilization advance without lawful justification.
However, NHA General Manager Javed Bajrani tried to explain that execution of the project had been delayed due to pending claims of people, who were being displaced by the project while the mobilization advance was released according to the rules.
The committee members, however, appeared unsatisfied with the explanation. They questioned why Rs2 billion from the public exchequer had been released when the land required for execution of the project was not available.
“Nobody will give two thousand rupees for his personal work when he knows that the same cannot be utilized, and NHA released two billion rupees knowing the fact that clear land was not available,” MNA Dr Tariq Fazal Chaudhry said.
He added that the NHA had favoured the contractors and was now giving excuses that had no justification.
MNA Syed Hussain Tariq said the contractors had kept the public money in their accounts for more than a year without spending it on the ground and questioned whether they had not earned interest on the amount during this period.
He questioned whether retaining the funds by contractors without utilizing them ultimately constituted a loss to the public exchequer or not.
The audit officials suggested that the amount should be recovered from the contractors for retaining public money in their accounts, while responsibility should also be fixed on the NHA officers involved in the release of the mobilization advance.
The PAC directed the NHA chairman to conduct an internal inquiry into the matter and submit a report to the committee, observing that the issue required a thorough probe.
