Massive anomalies appeared to have troubled the maintenance dredging project that the Gwadar Port Authority (GPA) is carrying out at the country’s deepest Gwadar seaport at an “exorbitant” cost of Rs 1.4 billion.
Things have been dubious ever since the GPA, according to well-placed sources, has awarded the contract to a dredging company, M/s Maqbool Associates, having “zero” experience in dredging works.
GPA Chairman Dostain Jamaldini, however, said “no” to the allegations saying everything was “up to the mark” at Gwadar port. The sources insisted that the PQA chief might have received some “kickbacks” from the “inexperienced” contractors who apparently had tricked the Authority on techno-financial grounds.
Of the three, M/s Mew Pvt Limited, M/s Mekhri Maritime and M/s Maqbool Associates the last bidder appeared as the lowest and thus was qualified to dredge the port’s navigational channel by, what Jamaldini told Pakistan Today, around 1.3 million cubic meters (cbm).
M/s ChinaHarbour and Engineering Company and M/s Qalandar Bux Abro & Company were the two technical bidders who refrained from submitting their financial bids.
The three companies, the sources alleged, had formed a “cartel” to end competition thus getting the desired rates of Rs 1.4 billion. “This cost is way out of the engineering estimate of Rs 400 million,” claimed the sources privy to the project.
They said Rs 1.4 billion was a price which the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) pays for 5 mcb maintenance dredging at its channel. Further, the sources recalled that it was same GPA that had paid only Rs 300 million to M/s MEW Pvt Limited to undertake the same job in 2010-11.
“This is an exorbitant cost for dredging of such small quantity,” they claimed.
To substantiate their claim about cartelisation, the sources said, at one point the contractor had used a dredger of M/s MEW Pvt Limited which later was returned when got faulted.
Further, the contractor, in its technical bid, had offered a Trailing Suction Hopper Dredger (TSHD) of 2,500 cubic meters (cbm) capacity along with other types of dredgers to accomplish the job.
On ground, however, the contractor deployed a TSHD of 1,600 cbm capacity, claimed the sources. “How could GPA accept this low-capacity dredger while the capacity constituted the basis for technical qualification,” they wondered. The contractor also is legging far behind the 90-day deadline the GPA had set for the completion of the project, the sources said.
“While the deadline had lapsed, the company has been able to carry out only 0.2 million cubic meters dredging,” they claimed. It is unclear how much more time the remaining 1.1 mcb will take to be completed.
The sources went on to claim that while work on the project was already running at a snail’s pace the contractor’s main dredger, 1600 cbm TSHD, was lying out of order for last one month.
“A grab dredger of 600 hopper capacity is at work alongside the jetty presently,” they added.
Dredging for the “inexperienced” contractor, the sources claimed, had rarely been a smooth sailing at Gwadar as it at times also had to get the service of Pakistan Navy which’s “Behr-i-Kusha” dredger had been working at the troubled project for quite some time.
When contacted, GPA Chairman Dostain Jamaldini denied all these claims as baseless. “Everything is up to the mark and what you are referring to seems to be coming out of some business rival of our contractor,” the chairman told Pakistan Today.
“No, no” was the word the GPA chief was repetitive with while responding to queries of this reporter.
The Rs 1.4 billion, he claimed, was very much a cost in conformity with the prevailing market rates. “Look at the quantity, 1.3 mcb. It’s huge. We are doing it on tonnage basis,” he said.
The channel, he said, would be deepened at different places by 13.8 to 14.8 meters. “No, they are the experienced ones,” Jamaldini said about Maqbool Associates, though without referring to the dredging work he thought the company had undertaken in the past.
The chairman claimed that currently two dredgers were operating at the port and work was underway smoothly.
