ISLAMABAD, May 15: The National Highway Authority chairman on Wednesday said that three companies had been asked to submit tenders for the completion of the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway.

NHA chairman Maj-Gen Farrukh Javed told a press conference that “selective tendering” was being done due to the size of the project which would cost around Rs13 billion.

He admitted that the Frontier Works Organization and National Logistics Cell had been asked to submit tenders for completing the balance work after the NHA had signed an MOU with a consortium of local contractors led by the SKB.

The government had removed the Turkish contractor, M/s Bayinder, last year after it had failed to complete two sections on the time it had agreed with the NHA.

The press conference was arranged following reports that the contract had been awarded to a group of contractors without following the tendering procedure.

In the wake of such reports, President Pervez Musharraf had directed that fresh tenders be invited. The NHA, however, adopted a novel strategy called “selective tendering” in which only two army organizations were invited to take part.

Asked whether the FWO and NLC were involved at a later stage as a cover-up as the government had already awarded the contract to the SKB, the chairman said “only God knows what is in the hearts”. He said he could not be blamed for the wrongs of somebody else. He said his anxiety was that the project should be completed.

Asked what was the original cost of the contract when it was awarded in 1993, he said it should have been completed at the cost of Rs16 billion in two years. Pakistan, he said, had paid Rs15 billion to M/s Bayinder. Now, he said, the project would be completed at the cost of Rs28 billion.

He said that if the Turkish contractor had not been expelled from the site, the project would have cost Rs42 billion.

The chairman said that the National Accountability Bureau had been provided with record to investigate the illegalities in the land acquisition for the road and the revival of the contract when it had been cancelled.

The Turkish contractor was originally awarded the contract on March 18, 1993 which was cancelled by the PPP government in January 1994.

The contract was revived when the PML came to power. The present government, however, again expelled the contractor.