KATHMANDU: The Public Accounts Committee under the House of Representatives has directed the Nepal Army to cancel the procurement process of the second package related to the construction of the tunnel and bridge of Kathmandu-Terai Fast Track.

The directive was given after discussions with the representatives of the Ministry of Defense and the Nepal Army on Thursday.

The committee concluded that the procurement process was not conducted in a competitive, transparent and economical manner as per the Public Procurement Act.

The committee has directed to cancel the procurement process and resume the process as per the Public Procurement Regulations.

The PAC meeting was attended by Secretary at Defense Ministry, Reshmi Raj Pande, and technical officials associated with the projects run by Nepal Army.

The PAC Chairperson Bharat Kumar Shah said although the Public Procurement Act has the provision of selecting multiple companies for pre-qualification round, only one company was selected.

Such non-implementation of law made by the parliamentarians must end, he added. He argued that there were legal flaws in the selection of contracts for the expressway project. For not having multiple companies in the pre-qualification round, there are high chances that a contract will be made on the cost lower than the estimate.

Similarly, project chief Bikash Pokhrel shared that there were two packages for the construction of three tunnels. In the bidding for the contract on the construction of tunnels and bridges, 21 companies had applied for the first package and 22 for the second package.

But, Nepal Army had selected two in the first package and one in the second package in the pre-qualification round.

Earlier, a meeting of the Accounts Committee of the Parliament was called for today to investigate the irregularities in the pre-qualification selection of the contract worth Rs 52 billion for the fast track.

The committee had cut off the letter to the Kathmandu Terai Madhesh Fast Track Office of the Nepal Army on March 10, giving a week to submit the tender documents and evaluation report along with the answers to the 11 questions raised in the tender case.

The Nepal Army had sent the necessary documents including the answers to those questions to the committee within the stipulated time.

On January 1, 2021, Khabarhub had reported that the Nepal Army (NA) was all set to surreptitiously award a contract worth Rs 45 billion to a Chinese company by taking advantage of the current political crisis.

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