NTDC renders Rs400mln in losses on ‘suspicious’ procur ment

LAHORE: The National Transmission and Despath Company (NTDC) rendered around Rs400 million in losses as the transmission regulator seemed to have avoided open biddings in procurement of insulators for a number of times, documents revealed.

NTDC management, clearly ignoring the trend of low price, bought hardware on exorbitantly high price from a manufacturer and that was so without holding open biddings, the official documents, available with The News, showed.

The company’s officials, however, denied any wrongdoing or violation of procurement laws while talking to The News during the last week of August. 

Zafar Abbas, managing director, NTDC termed the allegations misleading, but he didn’t answer other questions emailed to him, despite giving assurance that he would explain the company’s stance on the issue.

Later, Abbas, however, suspended a chief engineer and transferring other officials following initiating the inquiries on the same allegations.

Sources alleged that NTDC violated the terms and conditions of a bidding contract ‘CPP-01 (R)-2015 (LOT-II)’ on several accounts as it paid $31 cost per piece, insurance and freight (CIF) for 275,000 insulators that were available at a cost of $14.49. 

As per the rules, NTDC can issue variation order for additional procurement for only 27,000 insulators. The management, however, went for buying 275,000 units with a view to fulfilling requirement of another project. That was also an unlawful act, sources said.

This contract is part of the bidding document CPP-01 2015 that has been advertised by NTDC for design, manufacture, supply, installation, testing and commissioning of strategic 500kv transmission line starting from Thar (Zone-A 110 kilometre) and another portion of the same line starting from Matiari (Zone-B 135km).

The bidding process for various lots was completed by early this year. The sources said NTDC management flouted all the rules concerned and even overlooked a fact that the beneficiary company was awarded an additional quantity contract at $21.

Sources said the successful bidder has a history of supplying low quality insulators that have failed in operation on several occasions. 

NTDC again issued tender to the same bidder instead of taking action over supply of successive substandard hardware that resulted in countrywide blackouts in December 2014 and January 2015.

A bidder has also served notice of international arbitration to NTDC against this contract under the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law, which may further affect the company with more financial burden.

The bidder also lodged a complaint with the Competition Commission of Pakistan with a plea to intervene into the matter to ensure a level-playing field for all.

Sources also accused the NTDC of altering another bidding process for supply of insulators in an effort to illegally giving benefit to the same bidder.

The sources added that NTDC also breached a clause by issuing a ‘discriminatory clarification’ for insulators on 31 August, favouring a particular manufacturer through accepting high bid price as done in the previous bidding process.