The state-owned company, National Construction (NC) could build a majority of small and medium dams and hydel power projects planned by the government, provided it was not bared on weak grounds, said National Construction Limited Managing Director Hasan Haqqani in an interview with Pakistan Today on Sunday. He said that the company had the expertise to build public sector projects such as roads, bridges, hospitals, multi-storey buildings, small- and medium-sized reservoirs and hydel power plants.
The company had constructed Tarbela dam tunnel, Pakistan Steel Mills, Mangla dam Power House Extension, Faisal Masjid and Liaquatabad flyover besides carrying out large number of classified projects for strategic organisations. However, he said that some vested interests had barred the company from participating in biddings for public sector works. “Our participation ensures that the contractors give genuine rates and there could be no pooling among them,” said Haqqani.
He said the condition of depositing bank guarantee with the tenders for public sector projects was hindering participation in tenders however; the government recently notified that the NC could participate in any bid without a bank guarantee. “This notification is sent to all ministries and departments as well as to provincial chief secretaries and hopefully it will allow the NC to participate in majority of tenders,” he added.
It is important to mention here that the NC was set up by former prime minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto with the vision that the entity would serve as an anti-cartel body against the pooling contractors and give a better cost estimate for high ups to decide. Haqqani lamented that the NC was not getting any projects even from its own parent ministry, Ministry of Housing and Works, which was currently working on various projects. “We currently have no project from the Public Works Department, Pakistan Housing Authority, and Housing Foundation,” he said.
Dilating on the reasons for not offering work to the NC, he said, “Being a government entity we cannot offer graft to anybody, so we are not getting projects of our own ministry”. He suggested that the government contracts should have a “bonus clause” which would give impetus to the completion of work before time. “It is a norm in the developed world and the government should opt for it as it is very useful to curtail cost and time loss,” Haqqani added.
On Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules, he said, “We face delays because of these rules as we firstly have to advertise and then finalise the tenders. This is time consuming and delays our progress. We have approached PPRA and they are working on some solution.”