LAHORE: Chief Secretary (CS) Abdullah Sumbal has endorsed the decision of the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) to scrap a contract of waste disposal and tender of procurement of medicines worth over Rs8.7 billion after alleged anomalies and violations of the set criteria were found in the bidding process.

Earlier, the Director General of Health Services (DGHS) had challenged the advice/decision of the PPRA of scrapping the abovementioned tenders.

Giving his findings on the basis of the legal opinion of Law & Parliamentary Affairs Secretary Akthar Javed, Mr Sumbal declared that the PPRA’s decision/advice could not be challenged under the rules and regulations.

The secretary law opined that the procuring agency/DGHS had filed a representation against the PPRA MD’s advice in the matter of procurement, namely ‘Management & Operation of Hospital Waste Services in Healthcare Facilities for the Financial Year 2022-23’ when no specific provision was available in the PPRA Act 2009 and the rules made thereafter in 2014 for filing of representation before the CS/chairperson PPRA to assail PPRA MD’s advice.

“Subsequent to the advice tendered by the law & parliamentary affairs department, it is evident that the procuring agencies can’t challenge the advice of the PPRA under the relevant laws/rules,” reads the letter of the CS.

Fingers raised at minister’s role who claims he wants to curb corrupt mafia for transparency

The copies of the relevant official documents in the matter are available with Dawn.

An official said several violations were noticed in the tenders/contracts and he alleged that some officials in the Directorate of Health Services wanted to accommodate some particular firm(s) in the case.

He said the fingers were raised to the ‘role’ of Punjab Health Minister of Primary & Secondary Healthcare Department Dr Akthar Malik when the DG Health Services issued a controversial notification, making many functions conditional to the approval of the health minister.

The first such notification had empowered the health minister to play a decisive role in distribution of logistic support, equipment/material and other activities which, otherwise, were a domain of the health secretary.

“The Minister of P&SHD has been pleased to desire that the prior approval may be sought from the Health Minister office before scheduling any of the subject cited activity,” reads the notification issued by the DG Health office.

Another interesting aspect of the development was that three MDs of the Project Management Unit (PMU) of the P&SHD have been transferred so far in the wake of the abovementioned tender process.

On finding that the procuring agency/DGHS changed the criteria to accommodate the particular firm(s), other companies approached the PPRA MD to take notice of the violations to ensure transparency.

According to the documents, the firms told the PPRA that the procuring agency had invited bids for the ‘management and operations of hospital waste services in healthcare facilities’ for financial year 2022-23. They objected to the amendments made by the procuring agency in evaluation criteria formulated in the bidding documents and apprised the PPRA head that the instant evaluation criteria had been formulated in violation of provisions of PPR-14 and principles of procurement to favour a particular firm.

“This act of the procuring agency would cause to handle (result in handling of) the project by an incompetent firm which does not have the basic experience for hospital infectious waste management,” read the PPRA findings.

The PPRA MD said the original evaluation criteria formulated by the procuring agency was amended and the firms involved raised serious reservations.

Furthermore, only four firms participated in the procurement process and all of them raised grievances (one way or the other) before the PPRA.

“In the light of the observations, the most plausible and appropriate discourse for the procuring agency may be to cancel/scrap the subject procurement process and to reinitiate the process after reformulating the evaluation criteria as per relevant provisions of the PPR-14 after the fulfillment of all other legal/codal formalities”, the PPRA declared.

Punjab P&SHD Minister Akhtar Malik said some particular firms were trying to hold a monopoly in the tender process in order to stop the ‘entry’ of new companies. He said that a healthy competition was the only way to ensure transparency and a mafia in the primary & secondary healthcare department and the firms were trying to get favours but he would not allow manipulation of the process.

“I unearthed massive corruption in the health department and the mafia had been targeting him since then,” he said and added that he was trying to reinitiate the open tender process to give equal opportunities to all the firms.

To a question about the pre-bidding meeting of the firms he had chaired as health minister which was the domain of the officials of the procuring agency, he said he was attending a meeting when the representatives of the firms suddenly entered.

“They made a surprise entry in the meeting that was not planned for bidding,” the minister said.

To another query about the notification of the DG health’s office to empower him to grant approval for the distribution of logistics/equipment, he said he was not aware of the notification in question.

Published in Dawn, December 30th, 2022