ISLAMABAD: The Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP) and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) have stopped the process to construct an official residence for the chief election commissioner (CEC) at the Ministers’ Enclave due to unspecified reasons.
The ECP had selected the CDA for executing the project and last month directed the civic agency to start the process.
To this, the CDA on Sunday published an advertisement calling tenders for the construction of the official residence at an estimated cost of Rs100 million.
However, CDA’s advertisement drew strong criticism from social media users. The netizens came down hard on the government over timing of launching the project when the country was facing a financial crunch.
“The government has been saying that it does not have funds to hold elections in Punjab and KP, but now it is all set to spend a huge amount of money on the construction of CEC house,” said a social media user.
When contacted, officials of the ECP confirmed to Dawn that the project had been stopped and the CDA was officially told about it on April 14.
A source, however, expressed doubt over the ECP letter, stating that it might have been written with a backdate to defuse the criticism on social media. He said the receiving time on the letter was mentioned as 4pm on April 14 while the official timing of closing offices on Friday was 1pm.
However, ECP rejected such a claim and stated that the letter was issued on Friday and was received by CDA the same day. If this argument is true, a question arises why the advertisement was published on Sunday for calling bids by the CDA, it added.
“Keeping in view the financial status of the country, it has been decided to put on hold/cancel the project for construction of the residence of the CEC with immediate effect,” read the letter of ECP, which was addressed to the CDA chairman and the member engineering dated April 14.
“Right now, we have no idea when the letter was received. We will look into this issue tomorrow. Mighty be our staffers received it on Friday and did not convey it to the Public Relations Department to stop the advertisement. Secondly, we release advertisements a few days in advance,” said an officer.
ECP Secretary Omar Hamid Khan, when contacted by Dawn, said: “It’s [project] finished. No more being done.”
Another official of ECP said: “Project was at the planning stage for the last three years and has been published in routine; it has been put on hold and cancelled due to current financial situation. Even if it starts now, IT wouldn’t be completed in the current CEC’s remaining tenure, so he is not interested at all in it.”
It’s a routine infrastructure developmental work,“ he said.
According to CDA’s bidding documents (which has been cancelled now), the Notice Inviting Tender (NIT) cost- estimated cost of the project is Rs 100 million. Sources in CDA confirmed to Dawn that on the request of the ECP the project has been stopped.
Published in Dawn, April 18th, 2023
