PESHAWAR: The policy of merit was ignored while awarding construction work contract of Arbab Niaz Cricket Stadium to contractor who was unqualified and failed to complete the task within stipulated time frame.
A report issued by Monitoring and Evaluation, Planning and Development KP here on Saturday said that the contractor was unqualified that resulted delaying the project and incurred huge losses.
The initial cost of the project was Rs400billion that was increased to Rs944billion. During Covid-19 pandemic outbreak, work was stopped as most of the material was to be purchased from parties outside the country.
The overall project was consisted a main playground, a sports academy and a hostel that started from November 2017 and scheduled to be completed on November 2020.
The date of completion has been changed two to three times due to different reasons including replacement of Director General that inflicted financial losses on provincial exchequer.The new date to merely complete the playground has been extended to December 2020.
The report also identified usage of substandard bricks while a low quality swimming pool that resembles a simple water pond has been constructed. Similarly, the approved consultant charges has been increase to Rs52.8 million from Rs 15.4million that was mentioned in project PC-1.
