Senate committee seeks probe into Rs1.282bn irregularities in Dasu-Islamabad Transmission Line

Rs1.282 billion and the Lot-IV award

The committee's central allegation concerns how taxes and duties worth Rs1.282 billion were handled in the bidding for the 765kV Dasu-Islamabad Transmission Line Project (Lot-IV). The bidding documents explicitly excluded these taxes and duties from bid evaluation, yet the awarded price to M/s NWEPDI-TBEA (JV) appears to have incorporated them. This is the crux of the irregularity: if the lowest bid was inflated by an amount that should never have counted, then every subsequent decision, including the award, the contract value and the gap to the second-lowest bidder, rests on a flawed foundation.

The committee singled out officials of the Power Division, the Board of Directors, and the National Grid Company for what it described as reluctance to rectify the matter. The implication is that the irregularity was not a clerical oversight but a structural one, preserved across multiple oversight layers. The committee also noted that attempts were allegedly made to conceal the issue during Departmental Accounts Committee proceedings, with DAC officials later appearing unaware of the actual figures before the Senate panel. That combination, concealment followed by ignorance, is precisely the pattern that triggers a referral to investigative bodies.

M/s Newage Cables and the third-lowest bidder

The second project under scrutiny, ADB-401B-2022 Lot II-A covering ACSR Bunting Conductor, follows a different but equally troubling pattern. Here the contract was awarded to M/s Newage Cables (Pvt.) Ltd. of Lahore, the third-lowest bidder rather than the lowest. Skipping two lower bids requires rigorous, documented justification. The committee found the procurement "manipulated" and estimated a Rs600 million loss to the national exchequer.

The involvement of NESPAK as a consulting party alongside Power Division and NGC (formerly NTDC) raises further questions about the chain of professional certification. When an ADB-funded contract is structured so that two cheaper bids are passed over, it directly affects the confidence of the development partner, a point the committee itself flagged. The Asian Development Bank's procurement guidelines are designed to prevent exactly this kind of discretion; whether they were formally breached will now be a matter for independent investigation.

Senator Saifullah Abro's dual referrals

By writing simultaneously to NAB and the FIA, the Senate Standing Committee on Economic Affairs has widened the potential avenues of inquiry beyond what a single agency might pursue. NAB typically handles corruption and financial loss cases involving public funds, while the FIA can pursue criminal or fraud angles. The dual referral signals that the committee believes both prongs may apply.

The committee's frustration is evident in its language about "continued non-compliance" by the Economic Affairs Division and Power Division. When a parliamentary panel finds itself ignored by the executive branch on a foreign-funded project of this scale, the natural escalation is exactly what the committee has now initiated. The next test will be whether NAB and FIA accept the referrals, open formal inquiries and report back, or whether the matter stalls in the same bureaucratic inertia the committee has already documented.