ISLAMABAD, July 28: Apropos of a report appearing in Dawn on July 27 under the headline ‘Procurement of 200,000 sets; PTCL policy affects TIP’s profitability’, the Pakistan Telecommunication Company Ltd has said that no meeting of the PTCL board was held on June 20, 2006.

According to a press release issued by the PTCL on Friday, the PTCL invited open tenders for its Wireless Local Loop infrastructure and Fixed Wireless Terminals (FWTs). The Telephone Industries of Pakistan (TIP) participated in the tender with a foreign company as their principal. FWTs were purchased from M/s TIP and other qualified firms.

While this lot was in the process of sale, bids for procurement of another 100,000 FWTs were invited from four qualified bidders, including M/s TIP, on May 23, 2005.

The PTCL had only invited bid from M/s TIP. No commitment or understanding was given to TIP that PTCL would place order for 50 per cent.

As the tender was in the process of finalisation, feedback of unsatisfactory performance of TIP-supplied sets from users started pouring in. PTCL informed M/s TIP that performance of these terminals was very poor pertaining to low signals, patchy coverage, no service condition, etc.

These FWTs are not manufactured by M/s TIP; they are only supplying these through foreign principle M/s Westech, Korea.

The only reason for not placing further order on TIP was the unsatisfactory performance of the already supplied FWTs.

The purchase of 35,000 sets from a foreign company without any order is the TIP management’s own decision. Being second lowest in tender/bid in no way establishes any right for award of 50 per cent quantity (of sets) and thus attributing to PTCL the loss is not fair, says the press release.