ISLAMABAD, May 23: Expressing displeasure over selective tendering, President Gen Pervez Musharraf has directed the National Highway Authority (NHA) to float open tenders for the contract of the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway project (M-I), it was learnt here on Thursday.

Official sources told Dawn that the NHA had decided to award the contract of M-1 through selective tendering despite a directive by the president early this month to go for an open bidding to make the process transparent.

The NHA chairman had, however, announced at a press conference last week to seek quotations from the National Logistics Cell (NLC) and the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), to compete a Rs13 billion negotiated price agreed with a consortium of local contractors led by the Husnain Corporation.

In a fresh communication, the president expressed displeasure over the selective tendering and wanted a complete open bidding to avoid exploitation of the issue by the opposition parties through allegations of kickbacks.

When contacted, NHA sources confirmed that a fresh advertisement for the open bidding of the M-1 project was in the process of finalisation and would be released to the press in a day or two.

The NHA has already been asked to submit within two months the estimates of expenditure on the work already completed by the former Turkish firm. The project that was originally scheduled to be completed in 1997-98 now seemed going beyond 2006.

The directive also entails that the amount of Rs13 billion agreed to between a consortium of local contractors and the NHA under a memorandum of understanding (MoU) should be treated as a base engineering estimate for the fresh bidding.

About two months ago, the government signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the private local contractors led by the SKB to complete the remaining work on the M-1 project worth Rs13 billion through negotiations and without following any tendering process. The SKB and the Husnain Corporation are now in possession of the site.

This was seen by the contractors community as a shift from the open bidding process and award of mega contracts through negotiations.