E-tendering portal to end graft: minister

LAHORE:Provincial Minister for Housing and Urban Development Malik Asad Khokhar has said that e-tendering portal will be introduced very soon with an aim to eradicate the trend of corruption.

He was addressing a meeting regarding the setting up of the e-tendering portal in the committee room of the housing department on Friday. Additional Secretary Housing Omar Farooq, Deputy Secretary Mumtaz Ahmed and PITB officials participated in the meeting. Additional Secretary Omar Farooq gave a briefing on e-tendering.

The minister observed that the e-tendering portal was essential for the eradication of bribery and archaic culture of recommendations. Later, talking to the media, the minister said that technology would help to plug any loophole in the department as every effort was being made to ensure a corruption-free system. He said the online e-tendering portal would be implemented in all subsidiaries, including Housing Department, LDA, Wasa.

The tendering of projects under the annual development programme would also be linked with this system, he added. He said that an e-tendering system was very important to ensure transparency. Corrupt in the contracting system should be eliminated from the department, he emphasised. A call centre will also be set up for providing guidance about the e-tendering system. Asad Khokhar said that a computerised record of any change or amendment to the tender notice would be maintained. The computerised system will provide the security code to the applicant participating in the tender while the computerised system would also mark the firm itself regarding the system tendering. The lowest bidder in the tender will be automatically determined.