The Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) on Monday said properties purchased by the Employees’ Old Age Benefits Institution (EOBI) were bought in a non-transparent manner, causing serious losses to the state-owned institution.
According to a report to be submitted by the FIA’s Punjab chapter, the sellers of six properties voluntarily agreed to return the money, amounting to Rs7.087 billion, back to EOBI, and have submitted their offers on stamp papers in this regard.
These properties were purchased on highly exorbitant rates as compared to the market value, without following proper rules and procedures. Documents available reveal that owners of some of the properties had not even participated in the bidding process in response to the advertisement, but their properties were purchased by EOBI.
According to the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA) rules, all procuring agencies both within and outside Pakistan, are required to post tenders of over Rs50 million on PPRA’s website. However, the advertisements were in violation of rule 7 of Public Procurement Regulations 2008, because no tenders were posted on the PPRA or the EOBI’s website.
