The Punjab Power Development Board (PPDB) has issued Letter of Interest (LoI) to a Chinese telecom company for constructing solar park of 1,000 MW at Bahawalpur without any process of transparent selection and competitive bidding, it has been learnt reliably.
According to details, the PPDB has issued LoI to a Chinese investment firm for construction of solar park in Bahawalpur against the mandate and jurisdiction of PPDB as the Board has violated the policy it formulated for the construction of solar project, alleged one of the company, but wanted not to be named giving the details of the award of the contract.
Initially, the government of Punjab rejected the said company’s participation in the bidding processing, one of the official of the PPDB, requesting not to be named, told this correspondent, mainly because it is a telecom company but its subsidiary has won LOI for 900MW assignment. It is also pertinent to mention that the said Chinese company does not have the credential and capability regarding its potentials to develop such a huge project like 900MW solar project in Southern Punjab.
Another glaring anomaly of the contract, the official said, was that on September 22, the company furnished the guarantee of $ 9,00,000 instead of $ 2,700,000, prior to the issuance of letter of Allocation of Project Land for development of Solar Power Project in Quaid-i-Azam Solar Park, but the PPDB overlooked this irrevocable Bank guarantee and awarded LoI to the said company.
Interestingly, the PPBD management had issued the letter of interest the very next day setting the timeline of two months for the company to “complete feasibility of the project at internationally accepted standards including environment impact assessment,” revealed the documents.
Another bidder of the project suggested that the Punjab government had to scrap all the MOUs with the said company and cancel the credential for attending the government project at least three years in the future.
It was also worth mentioning here that the Chinese company was also involved in LED light project installed at Dubai Chowk Allama Iqbal(DCAI) last year while severe discrepancies were found and almost 60 percent of lights malfunctioned within few months.
The Lahore High Court, Bahawalpur Bench, has also stayed against the Punjab government’s award of LoI by directing it not to allocate land till the petition was decided against the said Chinese firm.
