Hearing a plea against the award of a $124.9 million contract to Huawei Technologies for supplying security equipment to make Islamabad a safe city, the Supreme Court on Thursday directed the Interior Ministry to file additional documents to substantiate that the contract was awarded transparently.
A three-member Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Justice Muhammad Sair Ali and Justice Ghulam Rabbani was hearing a constitutional petition filed under Article 184 against the awarding of the $233.7 million-contract to Huawei Technologies for Islamabad Safe City Project. The court noted that the lawyer for the Interior Ministry, Afnan Kundi, could not satisfy why the government entered into a contract with Huawei Technologies without entering into competition with other Chinese firms.
Kundi said the Chinese Bank EXIM, which provided loans for the project, put the condition to pre-select the Chinese firm for supplying the security equipment before entering into contract.
Shahid Orakzai, the petitioner, contended that no such condition was imposed by EXIM Bank that Pakistan had to buy the equipment from Huawei, adding that there were several companies in China that could have supplied the equipment at lower rate.
He said the security equipment for the Karachi Safe City Project, whose scope was wider than Islamabad, was purchased for $8 million, but the federal government was acquiring the same equipment for $124 million.
Orakzai said initially, in view of letters dated January 8, 2010, January 20, 2010 and February 25, 2010, there was a competition for the supply of equipment among various Chinese companies. The name of Huawei Technologies appeared for the first time on August 20, 2010, the petitioner said, arguing that the allegations of kickbacks and malpractice appeared correct.
The petitioner alleged that the federal government had bought 1,500 cameras, while 930 cameras were purchased for Karachi. The cameras were for traffic surveillance and could not control terrorism in the city, he added.
Kundi then admitted that the PC-I of the project had not been finalised yet. He said the Planning Commission had sent the PC-I to the Finance Ministry, which had not responded to it so far.
Justice Muhammad Sair Ali remarked that the PC-I was not prepared, but the contract was still signed between the government and Huawei on December 29, 2009.
The court observed that the prime minister had also shown reservations over the project. Kundi said accepting a loan from a Chinese bank did not mean that the equipment was purchased in a non-transparent manner, adding that it was one of the conditions of the Chinese bank to pre-select the partner before applying for the loan.
