Serious questions have been raised on the Pakistan Post’s ICT digital platform project before the finalization of its tendering process.
According to the details, Pakistan Post has given advertisement with regard to receiving of un-solicited proposal ‘without disclosing the name’ under 37(A) of PPR 2004 for trace and trace of the articles and allied system.
The Federal cabinet in January 2020 amended the PPRA rules and any individual or agency, private or public can give an ‘unsolicited proposal’ to the procuring agency which shall be assessed by at least three technical experts assessment committee.
The assessment committee shall ascertain the viability of the proposal and If the proposal of the initiator is found viable, the procuring agency shall advertise the proposal for open competition without disclosing the name of the initiator of the un-solicited proposal; conduct a pre-qualification process; exempt the initiator of the unsolicited proposal from the pre-qualification; and award five percent additional weightage to the project proponent in the combined evaluation of his proposal.
If no other bidder in response to the advertisement submits a bid, the procuring agency may award the contract to the initiator of the proposal and in case of bidding competition, if the bid of the initiator does not emerge as the most advantageous bid, procuring agency shall give the initiator an opportunity to make his bid at par with the most advantageous bid, however, if the initiator does not want to accept the challenge to match the proposal, he shall be given right of refusal without forfeiture of bid security.
Recently, a company 360 technologies have also written a letter to Prime Minister with regard to serious reservations on the conduct of the Ministry of Communications for constant preferences on procurements.
It claimed that Pakistan Post has been facing undue dictation for preference in each procurement process carried out in the last three years. Pakistan post advertised a project with the name of ICT digital platform and the department is extending undue favor to M/s Syntex by adopting and this has been equally objected by a number of companies including Ufone, PTCL, Saphire, Telconet, Carbon8.
The company claimed that the unsolicited proposal received by the department is neither unique nor innovative which is the basic requirement for a valid unsolicited proposal. Moreover, the “initiator” offered the same solution in response to RFP floated by Pakistan post and finalized in July 2021.
The company also alleged that there are certain elements in ministry who are helping the initiator take over the business without giving much weightage or consideration to the PPRA rules. It claimed in the letter that the assessment committee should comprise of at least 3 technical members whereas the committee has only two members which is a violation of PPRA rules.
The company believes that the whole process should be properly investigated and those who are trying to damage the interest of the department by introducing their preferred companies should be taken to task as per the laws.
“The DG Pakistan Post told us that we have not awarded the project to any company. With regard to innovative and out-of-box solutions under the un-solicited proposal, he replied that Pakistan Post wants to adopt the latest technology as per the requirements of 2022”, the company said in the letter.
Under this project, Pakistan Post will give android handsets preloaded with rider App/delivery software to 2500 postmen to update the delivery of domestic and international articles.
It is also worth mentioning here that Transparency International Pakistan on Tuesday also wrote a letter to DG Pakistan Post Khalid Javed with regard to PPRA rules violations in tender notice for procurement of state-of-the-art ICT digital platform.
