PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has abruptly terminated a contract with a private vendor four months after it received four B-7 level armoured land cruisers worth a whopping Rs142.948 million citing poor interior and exterior finishing, documents available with Dawn reveal.

In a letter addressed to M/s Toyota Frontiers (Pvt) Peshawar on July 31, 2015, the government had asked the vendor to keep vehicles and return the principal amount with interest, threatening further legal action if it did not comply.

The vendor says Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s complaints were minor in nature and were being addressed when it abruptly and unilaterally terminated the contract and he has the right to approach the court of law to reverse the decision.

The vendor says the four vehicles each worth Rs36.2 million were imported and customs-cleared in the name of the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and for whose import the Ministry of Interior had to issue a No-Objection Certificate, could not simply be abandoned at its workshop just like that.

“The vehicles belong to the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and are its property,” the vendor told Dawn.

“You can’t just abandon the vehicles at our workshop and tell us to take it over,” he said.

“They drove and used the vehicles were four months. One of the vehicles was driven for fourteen thousand kilometers, another nine thousand kilometers and the third for seven thousands. The fourth vehicle has been driven for three thousand kilometers,” the vendor said.

“Now they say the finishing of the vehicles’ interior and exterior are of poor quality,” he said.

The government in its termination of contract said it had entered into an agreement with the vendor on June 2, 2014 for the purchase of four units of Toyota Land Cruiser (V8) armoured with B-7 level protection with a total cost of Rs142.948 million.

Citing reasons for the abrupt cancellation of the agreement, the termination letter said the vendor had failed to effectuate the supply of the vehicles within a period of eighty days.

It does not say why the government accepted the vehicles in the first place and used it from April 6, 2015 to August 6, 2015 for four months, even if there was a failure on part of the vendor to effectuate the supply within the mandated 80 days.

The vendor says the delivery was delayed by continued dharna which made it difficult for the government to obtain the required NOC from the Ministry of Interior.

The termination letter further said as per the agreement the vendor was required to arrange for three inspections at different stages of preparation of the vehicle and its conversion to B-7 level – an ultra-armour protection level from ballistic and explosives impact.

Head of the Bomb Disposal Squad Shafqat Malik, who visited Dubai to inspect the conversion, was not available for comments.

The vendor said subsequent inspections could not be arranged as the government pressed for the delivery of the vehicles.

The termination notice also noted that its purchase committee members had pointed out major flaws in the quality of the vehicles and had refused to accept the vehicles due to violation of the contract agreement.

Again however, the termination notice did not say why the purchase committee accepted the vehicles and plied it for four months if the vehicles had major quality issues.

It said the vendor was issued with a notice of termination of contract on June 29, 2015. The vendor, it said, expressed its willingness to retrofit the vehicles as per the agreement.

However, when officials from the administration department visited the vendor, the vehicles were found to have been parked in the vendor’s Peshawar workshop and not returned to the original armouring company in Dubai for retrofitting.

In its June 29, 2015 Notice of Termination of Contract, the administration department had cited substandard interior and exterior, visualisation problems, fumes inflow and bulkhead/rear seat adjustability.

The vendor however, pointed out that while the interior and exterior quality issues were being addressed, the visualisation problem was due to the use of 72 mm thick glass in the armoured vehicles and fumes inflow problem in one of the vehicles ducks had been addressed.

Also the bulkhead change in the design of the vehicles was done on the explicit approval of the government. Documents available with Dawn corroborate the claim by the vendor.

Administration secretary Hassan Mehmood Yousafzai acknowledged that the bulkhead change in the design of the armoured vehicles was done on the approval of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government.

But he stuck to his administration’s contentions that instead of retrofitting the vehicles in Dubai to address issues pertaining to substandard interior and exterior, the vendor was doing the repair through local work force. None of those concerns, ironically however, relate to the security features of the vehicles.

“The vehicles have cost us a huge amount. We couldn’t accept vehicles that did not meet our specifications,” Mehmood told Dawn.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2015

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