KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that the strengthening of Sindh Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (SPPRA) is necessary for good governance and transparency but the “SPPRA must simplify its system and conduct training programmes of concerned officers of all the provincial government departments.”

This was said when he was presiding over a SPPRA meeting at CM House on Monday which was attended by special assistant religious affairs Dr Qayoom Soomro, principal secretary to CM Alamuddin Bullo, secretary finance Sohail Rajput, and managing director SPPRA Abdul Rahim Soomro.

Appreciating the performance of SPPRA, the CM directed all the departments to follow SPPRA rules in the interest of good governance and transparency. He also urged SPPRA to send him a proposal for establishing SPPRA regional offices, one in Hyderabad and the other in Sukkur. “This would reduce the work load on the head office and complaints of delay in disposal of files would also subside automatically,” he said.

He also urged SPPRA to dispose of approval of the procurement files/requests of the departments within 15 days.

Earlier, while giving a presentation to the CM, Mr Soomro said that SPPRA was established under SPP Act. Before the establishment of SPPRA regime, he said, procurement – the act of acquiring, buying goods, services or works from external sources – was made by government under B&R Code and purchase manual.

Mr Soomro said that PPRA rules apply when procurement is made of over Rs1 million. But, most of the departments do not follow SPPRA procedure. On this the CM said that he had reports that the SPPRA procedure takes a lot of time. “This is not in the interests of the government if the works envisaged and approved in public interest are delayed in red-tapism,” he said.

MD SPPRA also said that the reason of delay in approval was not made by SPPRA officers but because the departments usually send incomplete files for approval of the procurement. At this, the CM said that he had directed the SPPRA to start training programmes of the officers of all the provincial departments involved in procurement assignments.

Mr Soomro said that on the directives of the CM he had started training programmes all over Sindh. In more than 15 districts, two-day training programmes of the concerned officers have been completed and training workshops for the remaining districts were in the pipeline.

Camels Dying

During his meeting with the secretary forest, the CM referred to reports he had received from Thar that some camels have died in mysterious disease and directed his principal secretary to take up the matter with the livestock department and take necessary measures to check this disease.

“Like peafowl, the camels are also the beauty of Thar desert,” the CM added.

He told the secretary forest Rizwan Memon, who also holds the charge of Senior Member Board of Revenue, that he would visit Thar district during this week and personally monitor the situation in hospitals, veterinary services, as well as ask about the status of livestock and development works.

The CM was also informed that the Sindh Livestock Department has provided necessary medicines to the forest department to provide medical aid to the ailing peafowls in Thar desert area.

Secretary forest informed the meeting that he had dispatched eight teams of wildlife officers to Thar and had given each team one veterinary doctor.

On the recommendation of the teams, the livestock department’s poultry wing has provided 20,000 vaccines of antibiotics, 20,000 of vitamins, glucose and others necessary teams which have been dispatched to Thar. “Our department has arranged feed for the peafowls on its own,” he said.

The secretary wildlife said that out of eight peafowls kept in quarantine at Mithi, four have been released after giving them the necessary treatments. The livestock department has also started vaccines of poultry in the Thar desert area.

Published in Dawn, May 17th, 2016