Srinagar: The Army is now investigating allegations of irregularities in purchases made from funds released under the Army Commander’s special financial powers in occupied Jammu and Kashmir.

According to sources, tents and other ordnance equipment was purchased from local sources under the special funds. The purchases pertain to the last 2-3 years and are valued at about Rs 17 crore.

Role of a large number of officers, most of them from the Army Ordnance Corps, in the purchases was being investigated. Though exact figures are not available, informed sources place the number to be above 50. The purchases were said to have been made through No 1 Field Ordnance Deport (FOD), responsible for meeting the requirements of all formations and establishments based in J&K.

According to sources, General Officer Commanding in Chief (GOC-in-C), Northern Command, Lt Gen H S Panag has ordered a court of inquiry (COI) into the matter. The said irregularities came to light following anonymous complaints.

Sources also revealed that few days ago a board of officers assembled to condemn unusable items, many of which had a stipulated shelf life. The value of the items to be written of was significant and the board’s report was put up to the Army Commander.

The COI, presided by the General Officer Commanding, 16 Corps, Lt Gen T K Sapru with two Major Generals commanding divisions in the Northern Command was convened about four days ago, sources said.

The official spokesperson for headquarters, Northern Command Lt Col S Goswami maintained that the investigations pertain to procedural matters and have nothing to do with financial misappropriation.

A Lieutenant General heading the COI, could imply that the role of officers up to the rank of Major General in the purchases is being investigated. It is understood that officers who had been associated with the purchases and have since moved out on posting are being summoned for their depositions before the COI.

Given the commitment of the Northern Command and the Eastern Command counter insurgency and counter terrorist operations, the GOC-in-C of these two formations have been accorded special financial powers to procure equipment and items which are required for operations or welfare but are not supplied through the normal military procurement channel.

Just about any item whose demand is projected and justified by formations can be procured through these financial powers.

Tents for example are no longer being manufactured by the ordnance factories and are procured through local purchases. The financial power of the Army Commander to sanction purchases runs into crores. – SANA.

I think as Nawaz Sharif was crying in the plane, scores of politicians in Punjab were laughing their hearts out. I would not be surprised if some body told me that Shahbaz Sharif had a smirk on his face – if not laughter.

Does Nawaz Sharif think he is Benazir. Or is it one of his peers in Jihadi Organizations who promised a ‘Revolution’ on his return.

Whatever it was, one thing is for sure, Mr Sharif is not going to stay at the top of PML-N for long. I think this time he has been ‘Conned’ apart from the entire nation.

Separating Facts from Fiction!

It is time we get to the bottom of the real issue which led to the bridge collapse cutting through the propaganda campaign and media noise. We are seeing that a huge amount of disinformation and lies are being propagated in the media to confuse the real issues involved as ordinary public is not aware of the modalities and methods of major civil engineering projects. Here we would like to sharply focus on the facts which are also available in the public domain but have been blurred out by the vested interests involved in deliberate disinformation war. We need to find out who is responsible. Was it a design fault or poor quality of construction? This is the most critical question and demands serious answers.

When any civil engineering project fails, there are only four possibilities:

1. Good Construction but Design fault.
2. Good Design but Construction fault.
3. Bad design and Bad Construction.

When the Design is good and also the construction, then the projects are sound and safe. In this case, the only question we need to find out is – what caused the failure? Was it bad design; Was it bad construction or failure of both? A wrong answer to this question would get many innocent prosecuted and would allow the powerful perpetrators of crime to go free. This is where the actual high stake game begins.

Let us make few simple statements first to make this article easy to understand.

In any civil engineering project of this scale, there are minimum of three parties involved.

1. The Client. In this case it was the National Highway Authority whose job is to award the contracts for designing and construction of the project. NHA awarded to contract to ECIL, Karachi as Consultants and NLC as Contractors.
2. The Consultant. In this case it was the ECIL, the Karachi based firm who was responsible for designing the bridge and also act as Construction Managers to assure quality compliance by the Contractors.
3. The Contractor: Who is responsible for construction the project as designed by the Consultant. In this case the Contractors were the National Logistic cell, the NLC.

Once the contract is awarded, what are the responsibilities of Consultant and Contractor? This is a very critical question as it defines the role of responsibilities of both parties and hence allows us to fix the responsibility if anything goes wrong.

The Consultant is responsible for:

1. Designing the Project, its engineering calculations, structure design, elevation, gradient, setting specification for types of steel, cement, concrete and sand. Also, they are responsible for over seeing the project construction, keeping a closest eye on each and every step of the Contractors and issue them “check reports” or no objection certificates at every stage of the project as construction goes on. This contractor cannot move an inch without written “OK reports” by the Consultant. If Consultant is not satisfied with the material quality or quantity or the quality of work by the Contractor, the ok certificate is not issued and payment of the Contractor is withheld by the Client. Once the “OK report” is issued by the Consultant for the job already done, the total responsibility of the work done so far shifts to the Consultant which had given the final approval and certificate. This is very critical to understand. The most critical aspect of the entire project is its design. If the design is faulty, then the entire responsibility lies on the Consultant NOT on the Contractor or the Client.

The Contractors is responsible for:

· Constructing the project according to the Design given by the Consultant.

· Constructing the project according to the material quantity specified by the Consultant.

· Constructing the project according to the material quality specified by the Consultant.

If a Contractor does not deviate from the above three critical points, he has done his job honestly and cannot be held responsible for any failures. A Contractor cannot refuse to construct any design given to it by the Consultant nor it can change any specification or parameter on its own. It has to follow the drawings given by the Consultants. Consultant approves the work done by the Contractor and issues quality certificates all the way called “check reports”. If a Contractor has received “Check reports” from the Consultant, the sole responsibility of the work done thus far shifts to the Consultant as Construction managers guaranteeing quality of Construction. This is how it works.

So when a project fails, any inquiry has to focus on Design faults or Construction Faults. All other issues raised are only side issues and do not answer the fundamental question of who is responsible. An inquiry is must to determine the responsibility.

What the inquiry Commission does? It does three fundamental studies though it can expand its scope to other side issues as well.

· An inquiry commission obviously studies the design to see if there were any fundamental design faults in the project. If a design fault is detected, the responsibility lies on the Consultant. In this case it would lie on the ECIL if design fault is detected.

· The commission would also study records and samples to see if the Contractor deviated from the design, used poor material or used less than specified material. If these findings are normal then the Contractor is not help responsible. In this case, the Contractor is NLC. Else, the fault lies with the Contractor.

· Inquiry commission also studies the process of Construction Management and quality control by the Consultants during the course of the project. If the Consultants have issued Check Reports or OK reports to the Client and Contractors, which are NHA and NLC in this case, then also the responsibility lies on the Consultant for giving quality control certificates if the project fails in the end.

Now we come to the bridge collapse and study the facts. There is no doubt that the collapse of the northern bypass bridge in Karachi is indeed a tragic and catastrophic affair. But what is stunning indeed is that even before the inquiry begins, the MQM minister blames NLC and announces its blacklisting!

The entire media campaign is being orchestrated to rest the blame on NLC and NHA without even mentioning the name of the Consultants, the ECIL! Someone very powerful is indeed trying to protect the well connected Consulting firm which is also responsible for entire Consultation works in earth quake disaster zones in Kashmir as Consultants to ERRA.

There are reports which suggest that pressure would be brought against the inquiry commission by the vested groups who would be trying to bail out the consultants and if that is not possible they would also try to implicate the NHA / NLC into it as well by putting partial blame — enough to get NLC blacklisted.

This is a high stake, high risk game as many civil contractors who compete with NLC for government contracts are trying to get NLC blacklisted. The statement of MQM minister is absurd to the limit that they blacklist NLC even before the inquiry begins !! While we fully support am impartial, powerful inquiry, we also do not want real culprits to go free and NLC should not be made scapegoat for corrupt politicians or Mafia lords. Various stake holders mentioned below are already playing their dirty game.

In the past when similar inquiries of high stake corruption were done, assassinations also took place to send signals to concerned quarters. The murder of PSO chairman Munsif Raza and MD KESC are examples in case. The business competition, anger against army, trying to protect their own kind in civil engineering community and MQM’s own attempts to shift the entire blame on NLC will not make it easy for an impartial inquiry under present circumstances.

Also, it should also be noted that as to why the design of the bridge was changed when a factory came in its way and took stay from the court. The factory owner, his details, contacts with MQM, and his ability to get the design changed should also be considered. This is critical as last minute changes in design lead to serious engineering complications. Why the city government did not get the stay vacated, why the hurry to finish the bridge that they did not waste time in legal proceedings to vacate the stay and went for alternate design which was risky ? was it their attempt to get the project completed in undue haste to take the credit for their achievements or was it to get the lucrative contract where commissions and kickbacks make good money? Why the MQM is trying to protect the Consultants ECIL and blacklist the Contractor, NLC even without the inquiry?? In order to avoid all these issue, the MOM lead ministers are finding a simple solution of blacklisting military led NLC instead. This is farcical.

These are known facts that this bridge had major design faults and NOT construction faults. There are dozen of check reports issued by ECIL to NLC all along the course of the project taking responsibility for the quality of work and material. But instead, major design faults were detected when first Girder was built. It was the opinion of NLC that this Girder had design faults and should be demolished. But the Consultants brought in foreign Consultants to fix the problem instead of a re-design. The NLC had no say in the new repair ideas floated by the Consultants. NHA allowed ECIL to get the bridge repaired at its own cost and did not put any penalty on the NLC. Massive weight was added to the initial design which weakened the supporting pillars. In the end, even speed breakers were added on the bridge by the Consultants to slow the traffic which further increased weight on the under designed pillars!! It is most obvious that the Consultants kept on trying to repair a faulty design through various damage control methods instead of approving demolishing the first Girder to save their own reputation, which ultimately caused this catastrophic tragedy. Now they are also orchestrating a media campaign to rest the entire blame on the NLC and NHA. The entire documentation and paper work as well as correspondence of the project are available in public domain and should be carefully observed by the inquiry team.

Also, there are reports that all other bridges made during the MQM tenure are engineering disasters with similar design issues as in this case. There are traffic jams on many flyover bridges due to poor designs which increase the weight and shake the bridges violently or they cause major accidents when traffic from these bridges merges with the main roads. Flyover designs are not meant for huge traffic jams but for smooth flow of traffic. Installing traffic lights or speed breakers to merge the traffic into main roads or distribute the load on bridge pillars are engineering design disasters not construction faults. Many other Karachi bridges show similar design disasters. It would be interesting to collect data on all projects and to survey design faults on other “mega “projects under taken in the last few years by the MQM government else I am afraid we will be cleaning ruble from many other places in near future.

This should also be noted that this is a high risk, high stake environment in which multiple forces would be operating to implicate NHA, FWO, and NLC for various reasons. The present political environment in the country has given another opportunity to the political opposition to increase their pressure on army related organizations irrespective of who is at fault. The major players whose prime interest is in implicating FWO / NHA / NLC and who are pitched against the army are:

1. The Consultants. ECIL in this case. Their interest is obvious. Unless they implicate the contactors, they themselves would be nailed. They would use all their clout to try to either rest the blame totally on the NLC or at least share the burden with the contractor to reduce their own liability.
2. The Competing Contractors who want to push NLC out of the business in this lucrative market. This is a multi billion rupees high stake market where absence of one powerful contractor would tremendously benefit the remaining players.
3. The MQM who is seriously embarrassed over the disaster as Minister as well as city and Sindh government belongs to them and they have to find a scapegoat to rest the blame on. Their statements have already implicated the NLC, even before the inquiry began!
4. Anti-army local political elements who want to draw political mileage out of this disaster to implicate army run organizations like NHA, NLC and FWO.
5. Foreign players especially Indians who are taking keen interest in the crisis and putting the blame on the army and trying to exploit the prevalent anti-army environment in the country to further their anti-Pakistan agenda. The recent launch of the book Military Inc: is also a similar attempt by Indian and foreign players to tarnish army’s image by ridiculing their corporate ventures. The bridge collapse also gives ammo to their campaign.
6. Unscrupulous local Media who would be looking for hot stories and would implicate all especially armed forces without mercy as in the present environment media is acting as Judge, jury and the executioners in almost all matters of national importance.

It should be the top most responsibility of the government to assure transparent and swift inquiry to bring the guilty to book and to prevent any vested interests from shifting the blame on innocents by pulling powerful strings or maneuvering the media information. It is not going to be easy considering the stakes involved for the perpetrators but then this is where the challenge is.

Naveed Ahmed

Karachi