ISLAMABAD  -  The National Highway Authority (NHA) has categorically denied that a contract to dualise national highway between Rajhanpur and Dera Ismail Khan under Tranche-III of the CAREC Project is being given to a ‘black listed’ firm and maintained that the road authority instead has saved Rs13 billion in result of a transparent and competitive process.   

Earlier a controversy surfaced when chairman of the Senate Standing Committee on Economic Affairs Division Senator Saifullah Abbro without listening representatives of the road authority alleged that the aforementioned project is being given to a blacklisted Chinese company by NHA.  

However, in its written reply to The Nation, NHA has refuted such impression of ‘corruption and misuse of authority’ in the procurement process of the said project and categorically stated that the successful consortium M/s NXCC, M/s RA and M/s DC was not black listed by Public Procurement Regulatory Authority, Pakistan Engineering Council or any other department.   

NHA said that M/s NXCC is a Chinese company and possesses a good profile of completed projects in its country of origin. Whereas, the local JV partners in different lots are M/s RA and M/s DC, which have their registration of No Limit category with Pakistan Engineering Council and carries a good reputation in local construction industry with several completed and ongoing projects.

It is informed further by NHA that the project is being financed by Asian Development Bank (ADB). Therefore ADB Procurement Regulations, Procurement Guidelines and Procurement Policy were followed being mandatory requirement under the Loan Agreement in the said procurement.

It is worth mentioning here that NHA has saved Rs13.19 billion due to fair and transparent bidding process in a competitive environment.   

Sources informed that the National Highway Authority is under intense pressure from a powerful cartel, which wanted to manipulate the whole procurement process and still struggling hard to derail the project.   

However, NHA in its reply informed that ADB after thorough review of all bid related documents approved Technical Bid Evaluation Report and Financial Bid Evaluation Report as per provisions contained in ADB Procurement Regulations.

It is informed that the project is inaugurated by the Prime Minister and work on the site will be commenced soon after the revision of the PC-I from ECNIC as decided by the NHA executive board.   

After a healthy competition in February 2024, the said Chinese-Led joint venture secured all four packages of the trance-III of the Central Asian Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC) Corridor Project.

It is pertinent to mention here that certain bidders tried their best to sabotage the procurement process and grievance redressal committee was also approached to stop the opening of financial bids but without having any justification behind their request.

However, the incumbent management of the NHA in line with the vision of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has ensured transparency and after properly addressing aforementioned grievances decided to open the financial bids without expelling any of the bidder just on the wish of key players.

Later, Prime Minister also performed its groundbreaking as well because the project is quite important to enhance the connectivity and regional growth.   

The tranche-III comprised 4 lots for which technical and financial proposals were sought independently from reputable construction firms and a total of 20 firms had submitted their bids against this project.

Under tranche-III, an additional carriageway would be built on N-55 between Rajhanpur-DG Khan and DI Khan in which a two lane highway would be converted into a four lane highway.