ISLAMABAD: A day after the Engro Elengy Terminal Limited (EETL) alleged unfair treatment and wrongdoing in barring it from bidding for the second LNG terminal, the prime minister approved the appointment of CEO of the company as managing director of Pakistan State Oil (PSO) on Friday.

A senior official at the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources confirmed that it had received PM’s approval for appointment of Sheikh Imranul Haque as managing director of PSO. He said the file had been forwarded to the Establishment Division for a notification.

On Wednesday and Thursday, Mr Sheikh had accused Sui Southern Gas Company Limited (SSGCL) of “mala fides” to have rejected EETL’s bid for the second LNG terminal on technical grounds despite the fact that his firm had completed Pakistan’s first LNG terminal in a record time and within schedule.

The SSGCL had declared Gasport and Akbar Associates technically fit for the construction of second LNG terminal and disqualified the EETL.

“There seems to be mala-fides on part of SSGC to reject our bid,” said Mr Imranul Haque and demanded of the SSGCL and its board of directors not to open the financial bids for the terminal or else the EETL would “be constrained to seek all legal remedies.”

He said the SSGCL had reported two reasons for rejection of the bid for securing less than 70 per cent mandatory marks.

He said the EETL had provided ample and substantive evidence to suggest that it was not required a fresh no-objection certificate from Port Qasim Authority (PQA) for the second tender.

The EETL claimed it had explained each and every reason for its stance not to provide fresh NOC from PQA but its bid was rejected on the basis of a newspaper report.

He demanded of the SSGCL to provide grounds for the rejection of its bid as required under Rule 33 of the procurement rules and until then, not to open the financial bids because it was confident that its technical bid was fully compliant.

“If you open the bids, this may ultimately lead to the entire bidding process having to be scrapped and repeated,” he said.

Mr Haque explained that EETL would use its existing jetty which was being used and it was not being expanded by building a new jetty while its existing floating storage and regasification unit (FSRU) would be replaced with an alternate FSRU to meet capacity requirements of the second terminal bid.

He said the SSGCL consultant had raised incorrect questions about obtaining NOC from PQA as it was expressly explained with the documentary support that implementation agreement with PQA did not require a fresh NOC.

“The Implementation Agreement clearly defines the Terminal as dedicated LNG Terminal, inclusive of any additions, alterations, expansions and modifications”.

“We believe that SSGC had intentionally misinformed PQA on the bid proposal of ETPL and PQA had incorrectly interpreted the applicability of the implementation agreement as being applicable to new site, which is not the case,” he said.

Published in Dawn, May 9th, 2015

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