ISLAMABAD, Nov 22: Unmoved by the criticism of the contracts it awarded last month, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has awarded another contract ignoring the lowest bid.

Dawn learnt on Saturday that the contract for developing Sector E-11’s northern strip measuring 54 acres has gone to a firm, which had quoted the highest rates.

A similar scandal was unearthed in the award of the Rs3 billion Kashmir Highway project when bids were opened on October 26.

A source said the latest shady deal emerged from the CDA’s pursuit to enter into public-private partnership to take possession of the precious land in E-11 and develop it to earn billions of rupees by selling the same. While the previous CDA managements failed in such attempts, the present management has succeeded, allegedly because of “political backing”.

The source said this time three parties participated in the bids called by CDA. They were Golra Associates (GA) owned by MNA Anjum Khan, Multi-Professional Cooperatives Hosing Society (MFCHS) and Services Cooperative Housing Society (SCHS).

The agreement was signed with the MPCHS, which had submitted the highest bid with a 50 per cent profit-sharing formula it the sale of plots. The second lowest bid was filed by Golra Associates, which offered the CDA 52 per cent share and wanted 48 per cent for itself. The most suitable bid was given by SCHA, which offered 57 per cent share and intended to get 43 per cent.

The source said after hammering the deal with MPCHS, the CDA high-ups realised that it could be challenged at any forum, creating problems for them. Therefore, they tried to abolish the agreement but were forced by the PPP leadership supervising the CDA affairs to go ahead with the deal inked with the highest bidder.

As the CDA bosses were in a fix after the orders of the political leadership, they convened a meeting of its board on November 19 compelling the highest bidder to quote new formula of profit sharing and match it with the lowest bidder.

On the directives of the CDA board, the cooperative housing society agreed to submit the new bid that would be equivalent to the one offered by the lowest bidder - SCHS.

The source said changing the exposed bids was a violation of the rules of Pakistan Engineering Council and the Pakistan Procurement Regulatory Authority under which punitive action could be taken against such violations in government contracts.

Meanwhile, the MPCHS has got vacated over half of the land from the possession of the local landholders after paying them a compensation of Rs600 million.

However, some local landholders said the CDA was commissioning the project without settling the disputes with them. Some of them have also moved the court of law to seek justice. One of the landowners, Mian Khan, who claims that he has some 50 kanals in the same strip, has obtained a stay order from Islamabad High Court barring the CDA and the housing society from further land acquisition and development in the area. Taking up the petition, Justice Munir Paracha ordered the CDA to maintain the status quo but the authority is still working on the project.