KOHAT: The repair of dilapidated roads in Kohat was delayed for indefinite period as some contractors got a stay order form Peshawar High Court against it, official sources said.

They said that the contractors, who were not awarded contracts of the projects, moved court against the schemes. The consultants, appointed by the provincial government for bringing transparency in award of contracts, denied contracts of repair work to those contractors owing to their bad reputation, they added.

“Impediments are being created in the way of transparency system and good governance. The PTI government has appointed consultants for selecting contractors of good reputation and introduced e-tendering for awarding contracts.

As a result, all the corrupt people were dropped by the consultants and contracts of Rs700 million projects were awarded to new people.

Contractors get stay order from high court against award of contract

The old contractors have refused to accept the system of e-tendering and consultants,” said Assistant Commissioner Ali Asghar.

Sources said that orders for repair of roads, which had not been repaired properly for the last one decade, were lying at the office of deputy commissioner for his signature but the work could not be launched owing to the stay order of the court.

In the past, the roads could not be repaired owing to shortage of funds and now funds were available but the contractors created hurdles in it.

The required finances, contributed by MNA and MPA from their funds and royalty, were allocated and names of the contractors were also finalised, said Wahidur Rehman, the executive district officer, finance.

The people of Kohat have been demanding repair since long as roads in and aroud the city are in dilapidated condition.

The assistant commissioner told Dawn that it was decided after several meetings of the administrative officers at the start of current year to start work on repair of roads. He admitted that people and transporters were suffering owing to delay in the repair of roads. However, he said that they were helpless after issuance of stay order by the court.

Mr Asghar said that the other day he received a telephone call from Chief Minister House to inquire about reasons of delay in the projects. “I replied that under the rules, removing encroachments, holding meeting of building department and awarding contracts were the responsibilities of chief municipal officer and we have no authority to carry out such work. The caller was surprised and did not believe it,” he added.

Sources alleged that a group of some contractors and heads of various departments in the district did not want to implement the policy of transparency and award of contracts to people of good reputation.

Those people were eying contracts of the Rs1 billion city beautification project, approved by the local government for every divisional headquarters, they added.

Sources said that performance of the old contractors could be judged from the fact that the roads were washed away after few months of their construction during the last 15 years.

They said that those contractors used substandard material in the construction of roads and within a year they would get contract of repairing the same roads. During construction of roads, they did not make any arrangements for drainage of rainwater, which accumulated on the roads and washed them away, sources said.

Published in Dawn, January 27th, 2015

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