May 9, 2003	Friday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 6, 1424

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, May 8: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has allegedly deprived local air conditioner manufacturing companies of participating in a bidding for installing a chiller plant in the National Assembly building at an estimated cost of Rs9 million, sources in the CDA told Dawn.

They said the authority had cancelled two previous tenders for the project only because local firms were taking part in the biddings.

The sources alleged that some CDA officials had intentionally cancelled the tenders to get more commission from the multinational companies as these firms had submitted 23 per cent higher bids than the local firms.

An official of the CDA told Dawn that only international companies had been invited for the new bidding to be held on May 9 in order to get better quality products.

However, some of the local firms, which had taken part in the previous tenders, said that they were ISO-9001 certified and had already installed their equipment at the National Assembly and other important buildings.

The decision to exclude local firms would adversely affect the national exchequer as the cost of the chiller plant offered by the multinational firms is stated to be 23 per cent higher than that offered by the local companies.

The sources said the higher bid among local firms in the previous two tenders was of Rs7.5 million, while that filed by international companies amounted to over Rs9 million.

“There are clear instructions under different SROs that all provincial and federal government institutions should procure their requirements from the local industry,” the sources added.

They said that in order to keep the local industry in the dark, the CDA had put an advertisement about the tender in an Urdu daily which is read only by a small section of society.

They said one of the local firm which had also been excluded from the fresh bidding had installed indigenous airconditioning equipment at the parliament lodges, in the recently received submarines from France and other important buildings.