Capital Development Authority (CDA) is still perplexed about the 22 options raised by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) on the transparency of Rs 6.5 billion LED streetlights project.
According to NAB spokesperson, NAB has raised serious objections on the tendering process as well as CDA’s objectives behind launching this multibillion rupee project. Bear in mind that NAB has raised objections on the tendering process of CDA at a critical time because it is a time when the civic body is awaiting funds to launch the project to replace all 65,000 conventional street lampposts of Islamabad with LED lights.
The CDA officials have given detailed presentation on the project but the NAB authorities have found irregularities in the process. NAB officials have refused that NAB has given a clean chit to the CDA to execute the project. The tendering process is shaky and project cannot go ahead until all these differences have been ironed out.
Following the meeting, the spokesman stated that NAB has forwarded all the objections to the CDA adding the compliance was yet awaited. The Asian Development Bank refused to provide loan for streetlight project after which the CDA decided to execute it on its own resources. According to this decision, the hired company would spend 75% of the project cost and the rest 25 will be taken care of by the CDA.
For its share, the CDA requested the federal government to arrange funding which in itself seems a wrong question at the time. The federal government is short of funds and the CDA’s own financial condition is also unstable so the question arises here that how the CDA would pay back such a huge amount?
The NAB has asked explanation from the CDA on LED project on a complaint registered by Transparency International regarding the tendering process of streetlight project. Earlier, the CDA has formed high level committee to analyse the bids received from three companies. The CDA has rejected bids of all three companies due to bogus cost estimates for the project going against terms & conditions set by the CDA therefore CDA has termed project as financially unquantifiable. Public Procurement Regulatory Authority had also demanded a detailed report of this project.
