Mohmand dam construction contract to CGGC-DESCON made on merit: WAPDA chairman

ISLAMABAD: Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) Chairman Lt Gen (R) Muzammil Hussain Wednesday dispelled the impression regarding any favoritism in awarding contract to CGGC-DESCON for construction of Mohmand dam.

Talking to media he said, “Some speculative comments about the contract are baseless since the entire process has been undertaken with utmost transparency and without any favour or fear. WAPDA takes pride in its best practices and has the confidence of international donors for any commercial financing.

International bidding for eligible firms or joint ventures (JVs) was invited for procurement in accordance with PPRA and PEC provisions for the project. About 23 firms purchased the bids while two JVs submitted their bids," he added.

He further said, “Technical bids were opened on June 26 in presence of JVs. The bids were evaluated by a consortium of consultants including NESPAK, SMEC (Australia) and ACE and CGGC-DESCON was declared responsive.”

He said as per rules, the company had to have experience of 10 billion dollars work, where the CGGC-DESCON had the experience of 80 to 90 billion dollars.

The chairman said the Chinese company had share of 70 percent while the local company had 30 percent.

Pre-award technical negotiations were underway and after finalisation of the evaluation process, the contractor was likely to be mobilized by another 10 weeks by mid March, he added.

The secretary said WAPDA, by using its own capability, would kick off the work in second week of January, including Geotech boring, establishment of seismic station as well as weather station and preparation of camp site for optimum utilization of low flow period from January to May. This would substantially save both time and cost, he added.

He said the construction work would provide job opportunity to 6,000 local people, and provide clean drinking water to whole Peshawar city. He said as per agreement 40 percent workforce would be haired from Pakistan.

The secretary said Pakistani workforce experience with international workers would be beneficial as China had also followed the same formula in construction of dams.

To a question, he said the work on the dam would be completed in five years and eight month with an estimated cost of Rs309 billion. The dam would have capacity to store about 1.2 million acre feet water and generate 800 mw electricity, he added.

He said the dam would be helpful in irrigating thousand of acres of land in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

He said initial land acquisition in area had been completed with cooperation of local elders and administration.