Islamabad may not get a badly-needed sewage treatment plant at least for another one year since Sogea, the French firm and contractor for the project, has failed to meet even extended deadline of May 15, to bring the project on ground.
The CDA authorities are in a fix over the new situation since they were not expecting any such development from the contractor.
One CDA director, on the condition of anonymity, told Business Recorder privy to the entire development that Sogea has failed to meet the deadline of May 15 and it could further delay in materialising the project.
The responsibility of delay in making the project a reality within stipulated period lies with the Capital Development Authority (CDA) top management and its consultant, which picked up Sogea, a French firm, which lacked technical expertise and experience required to complete such a project.
The CDA officials who were related to the project had come to protect the contractor and its consultant when other interested parties took the matter at the highest level in Islamabad with a request to look into the case.
The CDA authorities took strong plea at all the forums that the contractor Sogea was the only firm in the world, which had all the technical know-how and other facilities to complete the project well in time. Though the facts were otherwise, which proved in due course of time.
A strong corrupt mafia in the CDA acted as contractor's agent instead of looking after state's interest and it finally managed to handle queries raised by the Prime Minister Secretariat and the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) in favour of the contractor and its reply to all the high-level inquiries was the same that complaints against the contractor were nothing but business grudge of the complainants.
The story revolves around French government funded sewage treatment plant project for Islamabad.
According to the information, the French government had approved for Pakistan a loan of Rs 1.2 billion to set up a sewage treatment plant.
The basic theme of setting up a modern sewage water treatment plant was to help in improving sanitary standards and environment in the federal capital by processing effluent, which are a cause of various diseases.
Everything was going in the right direction and in line with the conditionalities of the donor country - France - by the end of July last year. But then the mafia in the CDA came into play at its own in connivance with the consultant.
It got advertised tender for the project in CFCE, an unknown French magazine, instead of floating it in reputed local or international newspapers, which was a requirement for the project. It preferred a firm for the job, which was not in a position to complete the job.
This is a typical case, which is going to add to inefficiency of the CDA's top management, but at the same time, it is a test case for the government to look into and conduct thorough investigation so that national interest is fully protected and corrupt officials of the CDA, who preferred personal interest over national cause while awarding contract, faces its music.
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