ISLAMABAD: Without receiving even a single bus out of the total 130 requisitioned for schools and colleges in the second phase of Prime Minister’s Education Reforms Programme, the Federal Directorate of Education (FDE) has cleared a Rs800 million bill of the contractor.

The contractor will now get the bill cleared from the Accountant General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) office.

“Why payment of Rs800 million was made in advance? It’s strange that we will receive the buses after four months but have paid the amount in advance,” said an official of the FDE who requested not to be named.

In the first phase, the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) and the FDE had purchased 70 buses and 130 buses are to be procured in the second phase.

While renovation of 200 schools under second phase is stopped due to shortage of funds, NAB starts probe into acquisition of buses

Sources said the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had started an investigation into the procurement of buses and collected information from the FDE.

They said there were also complaints about faults in many of the 70 buses already purchased. A committee had detected faults in brakes, roofs, gauge meters, front screens and leakage in gear oil in the buses.

When contacted, FDE Director General Hasnat Qureshi confirmed to Dawn that advance payment had been made against 130 buses. He said it was a common practice for manufactures to get advance payment. The payment was made after getting an unconditional and irrevocable bank guarantee from the contractor.

“The bank guarantee is a big tool with the FDE to take action against the contractor anytime if he does not follow the agreed specifications. Secondly, there is a two-year warranty for the buses,” he said, adding the FDE had cleared the bill after getting approval from the competent authority.

The official also said the FDE had to take the decision of paying in advance to avoid lapse of funds as the current fiscal year would end on June 30.

The FDE had placed orders for the buses in April after a delay of a couple of months. Initially, a committee of CADD had raised objections over the bidding. But after removal of the objections CADD gave the go-ahead to the FDE to purchase buses.

Work on reforms programme halted

Meanwhile, work on the education reforms programme has been halted due to shortage of funds.

The programme was launched for the 422 government schools and colleges in Dec 2015 by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

“Yes, work on renovation of 200 schools in the second phase of the prgramme has been halted because of shortage of funds,” said Project Director Waqas Farid of CADD. He said 74pc work had been completed in the 200 schools. “When funds will be released in the fiscal year 2018-19, we will restart the work,” he said.

Asked about the probe by NAB, he said the bureau had obtained the required information about the project. However, he claimed that the project was executed in a transparent manner.

The project was divided into three phases. In the first phase, 22 schools were renovated while the second phase covering 200 schools was in progress when it was stopped.

The fate of the third phase covering another 200 schools hangs in the balance as the federal government has not allocated funds for it in the 2018-19 budget.

CADD was seeking Rs2.9bn for the third phase whereas Rs845m were earmarked for the second phase and the amount is likely to be released in September.

In April, FDE had formed three committees on the directives of the secretary CADD to inspect work in 30 selected schools. Deficiencies were found in the work done in many of the schools. One committee that included the FDE Director Monitoring retired Maj Abdul Waheed, a school principal and an FDE official noted deficiencies in all the 12 schools - six urban and six rural.

In a report, this committee termed the PC-I vague and flawed. It stated that work on various components of the project “was not rationalised and awarded without taking into consideration the size and capacity of the schools’ building area.”

The report said most of the items mentioned in the bill of quantities were drastically overestimated, and the end users - principals - were “not in knowledge of actual work being carried out in their schools and there is no qualified person who could effectively supervise the work.”

The report said the names of a few schools were not included in the list provided to the monitoring teams even though they were being renovated

However, the reports were rejected by a steering committee of the project on May 2, calling the findings “biased and prejudiced.” The committee directed for resurvey of 30 visited schools in particular and 130 other schools in general.

An official statement issued by CADD on May 2 stated that the committee had “expressed serious concerns and dissatisfaction over the monitoring report submitted by the FDE regarding the work conducted in 30 randomly selected educational institutions and termed it biased and prejudiced.”

The committee also claimed that the reports were not professionally prepared and had used a PC-I that had been revised several times. The committee members said the report lacked relevant facts and figures and the framers of the report relied heavily on personal opinion instead of commenting on technical aspects. The FDE was supposed to carry out the resurvey particularly of 30 schools within 15 days. But the sources said nothing had happened so far.

The FDE director general said following the rejection of the monitoring reports by the steering committee, the FDE had moved a summary to CADD for resurvey of 30 schools through different agencies.

“We had proposed the names of National Logistics Cell (NLC), Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), Nespak or FDE’s own committee. However, CADD approval is awaited.”

Published in Dawn, June 22nd, 2018