ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Maritime Affairs has taken serious notice of irregular and unjustified execution of repair and maintenance work on estimated cost of Rs5.277 million on a bungalow located in Lalazar area by the Karachi Port Trust.
The ministry has directed that an inquiry should be conducted to ascertain the facts and fix responsibility and standard operating procedures should be prepared in which limits should be prescribed for each building and unit for future.
While Section 18 (4) of the Karachi Port Trust Act, 1986 states that in case of every contract, where cost estimate exceeds Rs1 million, the Board’s sanction is required. According to Section 29 (last paragraph) of Karachi Port Trust Act, 1986, no such new work shall be commenced by the board until a plan and estimate of such work shall have been submitted to the board and considered and approved by them, nor shall any new work, the estimated cost of which exceeds Rs2 million, be commenced until such plan and estimates shall have been submitted to and approved by government.
The management of Engineering department, KPT awarded contract of repair and maintenance of Bungalow No. B-54 Lalazar Area Karachi to M/s Muddasar Enterprises at estimated cost of Rs5.316 million.
It has been observed that house was in livable condition as is evident that the previous occupant vacated the house on his transfer to Sindh government. The required approval of the board was not obtained. The repair work also included new additional construction work of 647 Sft which was not repair work rather original construction work.
Ministry is of the view that such heavy expenditure on a repair and maintenance on one house was not only against the standard of financial propriety but also against the KPT Act.
