Judicial body irked over delay in establishing children’s unit at NICVD

The Supreme Court-mandated judicial commission, which has been looking into the failure of Sindh’s authorities to provide clean drinking water, sanitation and a healthy environment to the people of the province, on Saturday took serious notice of negligence on the part of government functionaries, especially the project director of the National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD), which caused a delay in the completion of a children’s cardiac unit and wasted public money.

The commission, headed by Justice (retd) Amir Hani Muslim, observed that physical work had not yet been taken beyond the raft foundation and even the raft foundation had not been completed.

It observed that Project Director Tanveer Shah of the NICVD had first appointed a consultant and a contractor for the construction of the children’s cardiac unit. It said the project director started work but later removed the consultant in January 2018 and invited a tender for the appointment of a new consultant in view of the requirement of public procurement rules, and in the intervening period the work remained suspended.

The commission observed that the new consultant was assigned the task of vetting the designing, planning and re-planning and re-designing, whereas the project director appeared to have committed a series of blunders that spoke of his incompetence as in the first place the project director should have exercised due care and caution while appointing the first consultant.

It observed that after the first consultant submitted the designs, the project director should have scrutinised the designs/drawings, taking into confidence the NICVD administration, etc., before getting started with the physical execution which he had failed to do by allowing a corridor of six feet instead of 10 feet as had been informed by Dr Najma Patel, representatives of the NICVD.

The commission further remarked that a series of mistakes on the part of the project director ex-facie suggested that he conducted himself in a professionally dishonest manner or else one would understand that he has been very inefficient, lacking proper professional skills that an engineer was supposed to be equipped with.

It observed that changing the consultants and thus allowing the scope of the ongoing work to be changed and so allowing public money to go waste only spoke of a callous attitude of the project director, which was an outright mockery of the project management.

The commission observed that the project director in order to save his skin conveniently got an FIR lodgerd against the contractor apparently on the grounds that the contractor had removed steel bars from the site though the work was stopped for two to three months for want of a consultant. It said the criminal case was registered to pressurise the contractor to give up his claim of the work he had done earlier on the design of the previous consultant which was demolished by the present consultant.

The commission observed that although the project director had relinquished the charge on the intervention of the work department and civil work of the children’s building would be taken care of by the regular formation having been transferred to the works department with the consent of the health department as per the rules of the business, an inquiry would be conducted by engineer Pherui Mal with the consent of the secretaries works and health consultant and contractors to settle the account between the parties and to fix responsibility on all concerned, including project director Tanveer Shah.

The commission further ordered that work start through the works department without delay and with a proper work plan and timelines.