PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Thursday assured the Peshawar High Court that in future, the departments would execute all relevant development projects in the province by themselves.

The assurance was given to high court bench consisting of Chief Justice Yahya Afridi and Justice Abdul Shakoor during the hearing into a petition of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Contractors Association against the rules allowing the direct award of the contracts of major development projects by the federal government to its organisations, including National Logistics Cell (NLC) and Frontier Works Organisation (FWO).

The bench later reserved judgment on the petition.

During the hearing, advocate general Abdul Lateef Yousafzal gave an undertaking to the court that the government would reinitiate the process of awarding contracts of eight major development projects in Peshawar and Mardan with the approvalof the provincial cabinet in line with the mechanism provided in the relevant law and rules.

The advocate generalalsosaidthefunctions of Peshawar Development Authority (PDA), which was made the executing agency for two projects in Mardan district, would be made limited to Peshawar in future.A day ago, the bench had questioned why the relevant departments including communication and works department were ignored and only PDA was made the executing agency/ procurement agency in different projects.

The advocate generalassuredthe bench that in future the administrative secretary of the concerned department would be assigned the responsibility and the said department would act as executing agency of a project.

The petitioner has requested the court to declare direct contracting and sourcing to government organisations over private sector organisations through Rule 3 (2)(C) of the KP Procurement of Goods, Works and Services Rules 2014 as illegal, discriminatory and mis-procurement in terms of section 2 (1) of the KP Public Procurement Regulatory Authority Act.

The petitioner also prayed the court to declare Rule 3(2) (C) of the said rules as being against the spirit and purpose of the KPPPRA Act and in conflict with the Act.

It added that the court might direct the provincial government to harmonise the said rules with the KPPRA Act.

The respondents in the petition are the KP government through chief secretary, establishment secretary, KP Public Procurement Regulatory Authority through its managing director, communication and works secretary, Peshawar Development Authority, NLC, FWO, interior secretary and Pakistan Engineering Council.

Barrister Waqar Ahmad Khan appeared for the petitioner and argued a meeting of the provincial government was held on Feb 27, 2017, in which it was decided to award contracts of eight major projects in Peshawar and Mardan to NLC.

He stated that those projects included Flyover at Warsak RoadRing Road intersection in Peshawar; Level II Flyover at GT Road and Ring Road Intersection;Internal roads rehabilitation projects in Peshawar City; Peshawar Uplift program and flyovers at Jawad Chowk and Katlang Chowk in Mardan.

He argued that KPPPRA Act was enacted in 2012 for ensuring transparency, accountability and fairness all procurements shall be conducted so as to maximise competition and to achieve value of money. He stated that the procurement process/ competitive bidding was laid down in Section 28 and Section 33 of the said Act, which made it mandatory for procuring entities to resort to open competitive bidding as the preferred method of procurement.

He added that only exception provided in the said Act included cases of petty purchases, in emergencies (natural and government), for urgent requirement caused byunseen events,etc.

The counsel contended that the KP government had on Feb 3, 2014, framed the KP procurement of Goods, Works and Services Rules 2014. He argued that the bone of contention had arose due to insertion of section 3(2) (C) of the Rules which provided direct sourcing to a government organisation for provision of work, services or goods under a cost plus or fixed contract provided that the public-sector organisation should not involve a private sector enterprise as a partner or in the form of a joint venture or a sub-contractor.

Additional advocate general Waqar Ahmad contended that the rules were not in conflict with the Act as under Section 33 of the Act sourcing out a project directly to a government procurement agency was permissible.

He insisted that the decision to award contracts directly was taken in public interest as the entities to which the contracts were awarded were of international standard and enjoyed good reputation.Advocate Aamir Jawed appeared for KPPPRA and Tariq Afridi represented the PDA.