Pakistan: Graft 'rampant' in building of transport network
Karachi, 3 Sept. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - The plan to build a transport network from Almaty in Kazakhstan to Karachi in Pakistan in order to develop trade routes between the Central Asian and the Indian subcontinent, could be threatened by corrupt building practices.
A former chief engineer with the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, which handles public building projects in the southern port city, told Adnkronos International (AKI) that there is rampant corruption in the way in which construction contracts have been awarded to companies to building the flyovers that are part of the transport network.
Ironically, this practice [corruption] is rampant in this whole project to build the trade communication infrastructure which will link Central Asia to the warm waters of Gwadar and Karachi," Nadeem Ansari, the ex-chief engineer of Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, told AKI.
"Within Karachi, the two main communication corridors have been developed. One corridor, comprising three flyovers and three underpasses was finished last year at a cost of 23.33 million US dollars and another corridor comprising five flyovers costing around 24 million US dollars is underway," he said.
"The contracts have been awarded without pre-qualifications and to those contractors who never built flyovers in the past," said Ansari.
One of the most important flyovers in this project was the Northern By-Pass flyover, in Pakistans southern port city of Karachi which connects the trade traffic from northern Pakistan to the south and is part of the trade corridor to link to Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics.
The Northern By-Pass Flyover collapsed on Saturday killing at least six people. The incident reportedly occurred because of a design fault in the project. Initial official inquires revealed that project was awarded without a tender.
It is believed that other transportation networks are under also serious threat as corruption is the major factor behind the poor construction of the flyovers.
The project's contracts should have been tendered at a larger scale and foreign consultants s should have been encouraged to participate in the contracts," he said.
"But ironically the demands for kickbacks is as much as 40 percent which no professional firm with an international reputation can afford to pay that amount and thats why such a high profile consultancy contract was awarded in contravention of all tender rules and in some cases to little known companies, Nadeem said.
Pakistan began to work on improving road and trade links in 2001.
The then Pakistani finance minister and current prime minister Shaukat Aziz had announced that a rail link would be built in Baluchistan province from Dalbandin via Panjgur to the Gwadar deep-sea port with Chinese cooperation and pledged to renew the prospects for an alternate land-sea trade outlet for Central Asia through Pakistan via the Indus Basin corridor.
The project would initially cost approximately 142 million dollars, relying partly on traffic through Pakistan's existing road rail facilities.
The entire project would be completed in two phases at an estimated cost of 1.42 billion dollars.
There was the plan of a Almaty-Karachi road/railway networks to be extended and linked through other Afghanistan-Pakistan routes surrounding Bolan, Gomal, the Khyber Pass and Pakistans northern areas.
This would allow Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to trade through the Arabian Sea on the doors of South and Southwest Asia and the Middle East with distances reduced by approximately 1200-1400 kilometers.
Diplomatic circles and government officials in the participating countries value the importance of Almaty-Karachi and related link roads as economically cost-effective, and relatively safe and uncontested when compared to other turbulent routes.
AKI - Adnkronos international Pakistan: Graft 'rampant' in building of transport network
