A report by a national Bangla daily on Thursday mentioned the irregularities committed by the Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) in purchasing a digging equipment. CPA earlier took a decision to buy the machine-an ‘amphibious excavator’ with an estimated cost of Tk 3 crore under its mechanical division. Later CPA scrapped the decision. But it is now revealed that CPA is going to buy a new model of digging equipment namely an ‘environment and restoration vehicle’ costing Tk 20 crore plus under its river management wing. Experts within the Port Authority opined that the new machine would not be effectual. Conventional wisdom suggests that there may be dirt under the carpet.
The Port Authority has now decided to buy the equipment under the ‘Pollution Control Equipment For EMU’ requirement. It is notable that the CPA has an allocated fund for Tk 3 crore for this head in FY 2013-14 budget. This move of the CPA to buy equipment of doubtful use and also without budgetary allocation at prices 6 to 7 times higher than its budget has raised doubts in the public mind about its plan. It may be a sheer wastage of public fund and certainly there may be an element of corruption.
However, a high up of the Port Authority denied the allegations saying that the authority has the right to make any purchase upto 20 crore taka. He said that the port will make the purchase through an open bid and therefore, there will be no irregularity in it. For any govt purchase, some rules and regulations under public purchase rule (PPR) are to be maintained. According to PPR, to make such purchase, the Port Authority was supposed to prepare a Development Project Proposals (DPPs) seeking approval of the Ministry. But the authority is allegedly planning for buying the equipment directly through selective tender without any concurrent nod from the Ministry. Earlier in 2011, the Port Authority tired to make some purchases without the ministry’s consent, which they had to abort because the Ministry turned the proposal down.
According to the concerned officials of the port, the equipment – ‘Water Master Classic Four’ – has a digging capacity of only five feet while the usual depth on an average at the Jetty point of the port is more than that. Moreover, as the current of the Karnaphuli river is four nautical miles, the proposed machine does not have the capability to dig the port surroundings. Moreover, if the Port Authority does the digging job themselves, then a question naturally surfaces about the responsibility of the Hydrography Department who are, in fact, assigned for digging the port surroundings.
Besides, the experts also doubt the price of ‘Water Master Classic Four’. In a study, its price was estimated to be around Tk 7 crore. Then why would the Port Authority buy the machine at 20 crore taka? The CPA explanations to explain such a higher price is also questionable. Therefore, we ask the Shipping Ministry to make further investigation into what is actually going on in the name of buying digging equipment in Chittagong Port. There are good reasons to believe that buying such a machine in such an unauthorized and arbitrary way would merely be a wastage of public money out of which some corrupt officials would be benefitted, but not the port.
