LAHORE: The Board of Directors of National Transmission and Despatch Company has declared public money as the company’s own resources and decided to purchase a Rs840 million software, ignoring the process set by the government and advice of its own director legal and director information technology – who termed the purchase illegal and one of them quit the job in protest.

Detailed questionnaires were sent to the Board of Directors, the NTDC management and the Ministry of Water and Power separately citing anomalies in the process and “illegality of issue”, but all of them chose not to respond despite a lapse of over two weeks and repeated reminders.

NTDC officials privately conceded illegality of the procurement and claimed that they did not want to “compound the original sin by justifying it”, but none of them is ready to come on record.

According to details, the NTDC board recently floated the idea of purchasing software called Enterprise Resources Planning (ERP) systems, which was originally offered under a grant from the USAID. With USAID opting out at a later stage, the board decided to purchase it from the company’s money and referred the case to the legal adviser to get clarification whether the approval has to be routed through the government or its own approval is sufficient.

The legal adviser clarified that the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council had approved the procedure for autonomous organisations like the NTDC, which made it mandatory to constitute a Development Working Party – comprising representatives from the Planning and Development Division, Finance Division, and the ministry concerned – and each representative should not be less than the rank of joint secretary. Only such a party, the adviser said, could decide the fate of such initiatives.

The quorum of the party cannot be considered complete without Finance and P&D division. If they both don’t agree, the case would then be referred to the Central Development Working Party of the federal government.

The NTDC, it was said, was required to prepare PC-I because it was the basic document for any project in the public sector. The NTDC, owned and controlled by the government, cannot deviate from the procedure because such projects utilise public money and are designed for the welfare of the public, said Legal Adviser Abdul Majid Khan.

Building on the legal position, Director IT, Farooq Shaukat, said purchase of the ERP systems, without approval of the government, will create “serious consequences and audit objections”.

Accusing the company secretary of “pressing him hard for immediate purchase”, the Director IT, who was also appointed as Project Director for ERP systems, quit the job. Before resigning, he insisted that the NTDC had the capability to develop and implement such systems indigenously and save the money for other development projects.

But the board overruled the views and in its 99th meeting on July 11 decided to procure the systems without the government approval and directed the management of the company (through C.S/NTDC/5360-64, dated August 5, 2015) to “proceed with procurement of the ERP systems immediately, without any further delay”.

The NTDC immediately advertised the post of consultant and is said to be in the process of calling bids.

“No-one really knows how the board can declare NTDC’s money as its own resources and order the purchase,” asks a former head of the company. The idea of ERP is not new, but the process certainly is. The board is not ready to take PC-I to the federal Planning Commission on the pretext that it would delay the process.

Another question is about the reason for purchasing it from outside because the company selling it will be playing a part in running it and the NTDC will be turned into a cow that would be milked continuously.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2015

On a mobile phone? Get the Dawn Mobile App: Apple Store | Google Play