ISLAMABAD: A petition filed in the Islamabad High Court (IHC) highlighted several loopholes in the construction of the building, and claimed that a recent contract of Rs1.87bn for the construction of a facilitation centre was allotted against rules to a ‘proxy’ company of the contractor responsible for the construction of the main building.

The petition stated that the Chief Engineer (North) of the Pakistan Public Works Department (PWD) awarded tenders for the construction of the IHC building to M/S Habib Rafiq Limited in the year 2015. The escalation charges over a period of five years must have enhanced the completion cost many times (might be in billions of rupees) as compared to the cost originally conceived/awarded.

The petition stated that “in order to camouflage the ill deeds, the chief engineer (north) instead of revising the PC-1 of the IHC project, opted to frame another PC-1 with the title “Construction of Legal Facilitation Centre at Islamabad High Court Building”.

The initiation of another PC-1 during the pendency of the previous PC-1 was against the rules, it said, adding that the PWD got approved another PC-1 for the Construction of Legal Facilitation Centre at Islamabad High Court Building through the Departmental Development Working Committee (DDWP), costing Rs1.87bn

Contractor accused of circumventing rules, submitting ‘bogus’ experience certificate

This cost is likely to reach up to Rs3 billion, which means that the total cost of the project will touch Rs8 billion. The executive engineer (central) in connivance with the chief engineer prepared an estimate on the market rates instead of the Pak PWD Schedule of Rates-2022 in sheer violation of the rules, the petition added.

According to the petition, the PWD awarded the tender for “the construction of Legal Facilitation Centre at Islamabad High Court Building” to M/s City traders, a proxy firm of M/s Habib Rafiq Limited, as it was not technically possible to award the tender directly to the principal firm.

It claimed that M/s City trader was a dummy firm and at the time of tendering, it was not licenced by the Pakistan Engineering Council. It got the licence about three months before the tender notice was issued on April 5 last year.

The petition went on to state that the PWD invited tenders for the project on single stage two envelopes basis and prequalified only one bidder M/s City Traders on the basis of ‘false credentials’ and the contract was also awarded to the same firm. It pointed out that the inquiry committee constituted by the PWD that examined the award of the contract found that “the firm M/s City trader enclosed bogus experience certificate” to meet the eligibility criteria.

Moreover, the firm enclosed a bogus pay order/CDR amounting to Rs30 million claimed to be issued by ABL, G-8 Markaz Branch Islamabad as earnest money. When the committee referred the said CDR to the concerned bank, they declared it “bogus”.

The petition further contended that the project is being managed by the same person who was earlier working as the project in-charge of the main project on behalf of M/s Habib Rafiq Limited.

The fraud was referred to the FIA in Oct 2022 for the registration of a criminal case, but to no avail.

The petition stated that the “over-all quality of the work completed up till now, is highly substandard. The central air-conditioning system is defective and could not be put into operation though full payments have been released to the contractors. The specifications of various building items have been compromised for illegal monetary gains.”

The courtrooms are without acoustic treatment making it difficult to hear the court proceedings properly, it added. The petition requested the IHC to issue a stay order against the project and hold the PWD officials accountable.

Published in Dawn, November 10th, 2023