RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) on Tuesday had to cancel tenders for uplift projects in the city worth Rs120 million after contractors boycotted the auction till liabilities from last year are cleared.

An RMC official told Dawn the corporation had approved development projects in 46 union councils from UC chairmen on which work had to be started before June and included the construction of roads, streets, drains and tube wells.

However, contractors’ associations refused to participate in the auction and work with the RMC which had not paid different contractors more than Rs200 million for last years’ work.

When asked, RMC Chief Municipal Officer Khalid Goraya said the change in local government system was why the RMC had to stop payments to contractors and that the issue was taken up with the deputy commissioner and will be solved soon.

Tenders are being awarded for Rs120 million in uplift projects to be started by June

He said the accounts of the now defunct Rawal Town Municipal Administration were frozen in Dec 2016, before the formation of the RMC, and were opened in April 2017.

He said Rs620 million worth of funds were in the account of the District Accounts Office which refused to give the RMC the amount back without the approval of the Punjab Treasury Inspector.

He added that the District Accounts Office had been asked to give the civic body’s money back which was deposited in the account on the directives of the Punjab government so the RMC can transfer it in new accounts.

He said the issue will be solved but it will take a few weeks to get the money back and that the contractors were asked to participate in the process of awarding tenders but they wanted to be paid their dues first.

Mr Goraya said the RMC had decided to postpone the process for a week or two till the contractors are paid their dues.

He added that the uplift projects will be started in June and there was no issue with the lapse of funds in this case as the funds were generated by the civic body and were not from grants by the provincial government.

Published in Dawn, May 24th, 2017