ISLAMABAD: The ministry of Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) on Friday authorised heads of educational institutions to purchase close circuit television (CCTV) cameras for their institutions.

According to a spokesman for CADD, the decision was taken at a meeting, which was presided over by the state minister for CADD, Barrister Usman Ibrahim and attended by secretary, CADD, Khalid Hanif, additional secretary, Qasiar Majid Malik and director general of Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) Shahnaz Riaz.

The spokesman said the minister had empowered 391 schools and colleges to purchase cameras and other security gadgets.

He said the minister had consulted the ministry of information technology regarding the specification and market price of the cameras before taking the decision.

“The minister directed the DG, FDE to liaise with the IT ministry in this regard, and specifications of the products should be conveyed to schools and colleges to ensure that the requirements of transparency and quality are met,” the spokesman said and added that principals are directed to make purchase of

cameras and other equipment, through contracts under Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules.

The FDE had floated tenders for the purchase and last Monday four companies were short-listed. But three of them were disqualified on technical grounds, and the lone company was awarded the contract by the FDE committee.

The minister termed the award of contract to the company against the spirit of the competition and PPRA rules, and took notice of the issue.

He sought details of the bidding process from the FDE and during inspection of the record, according to the spokesman, it was further transpired that the single company also turned out to be ineligible for getting the contract of Rs50 million.

To this, the minister rejected the tender and ordered that instead of giving contract to this company, principals should be empowered to get this work done.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2015

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