ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court stayed on Monday the award of a multi-billion-dollar contract for the import of 400 million cubic feet of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG).
“Stay proceedings in all the forums till final decision of the case,” ordered a bench comprising Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed while hearing a suo motu notice on press reports that the Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) has left the decision to award the contract to the cabinet.
The court summoned Waqar A. Malik, who has resigned as chairman of the Sui Southern Gas Company (SSGC) when its board was asked to declare Pakistan Gasport consortium as the lowest bidder, on March 18.
The court passed the injunctive order after Advocate Anwar Mansoor, representing the SSGC, assured it that the company would not process the matter to send it to the cabinet for approval.
Mr Mansoor explained that Waqar Malik’s resignation had more to do with the conflict of interest since he was also secretary to the board of Elengy Terminal Pakistan Limited a subsidiary of Engro group and one of the bidders in the LNG import.
Appearing on behalf of the Ministry of Petroleum, Advocate Salman Akram Raja assured the court that no contract would be awarded to any bidder since the apex court had taken cognizance of the matter.
However, both the counsel sought time to submit comprehensive comments on the subject.
The court noted that the two counsel had emphasised during the proceedings that transparency in the award of the contract was one of the major considerations.
But without commenting on the transparency aspect of the deal to any of the parties, prima facie, the court expressed its opinion that the ministries of petroleum and finance as well as the economic affairs division while adhering to an earlier judgment of the apex court could have followed a fair method in awarding the contract.
On April 28, 2010, the Supreme Court had directed the ECC to initiate “in a highly transparent fashion” the process afresh to award a contract to import LNG for the Pakistan Mashal project and short-term LNG supply project.
The court also ordered to repeat notices on all the bidding parties.