Government is trying to bring technical expertise of private consultants:Iftikhar Ali Sahu

Lahore: Punjab Secretary Planning & Development Iftikhar Ali Sahu has said that over the years Punjab Government has tried to bring in the competency and technical expertise of private consultants. Now the Government is moving towards engaging academia, civil society organizations, companies, businesses, firms and consultants and this initiative as per the vision of CM Punjab intends to improve the quality of services provided by the government through modern techniques and models implied by national and international consultants.

He expressed his views while addressing the seminar titled “Pre-qualification for consulting firms under the concept of capacity building of government departments”, organized by DG, M&E, P&D held in the Auditorium of P&D Complex at Lahore.

Secretary P&D Iftikhar Sahoo said that Government department’s capacity to conceive high quality projects needs to be upgraded for which the demand of consultants is undeniable. He added that Punjab Government mandate was much beyond the pre-qualification and it was to develop consultancy sector and this exercise held today was part of that drive as per the Chief Minister’s vision. Punjab Government was going to initiate Mega Projects in the Province during the fiscal year 2016-17 by involving and ensuring partnership of international & national consultancy firms and companies.

Director General (M&E), P&D welcomed all the representatives of Consulting Firms to attend the Pre-qualification Seminar that will help in understanding amendment in PPRA Rules 2014 and subsequent pre-qualification for the financial year 2016-17 by P&D Department with 09^th May 2016 as closing date for applying. He through brief presentation, iterated that contractors and consultants were development partners while P&DD approved development projects of Rs. 400 billion plus for the current currency year. He said that consultants were important than contractors as the former designs projects on which Government allocated public funds and the projects must be rationally designed to get best returns out of the public spending. He added that because of resource constraints the GoPb was moving towards Private Public Partnership (PPP) mode to address acute public issues without worrying much about monetary obligations.

Addressing the seminar, Dr. Shabana Haider Member Health, P&D Board said that instead of adopting stereotype skills and techniques, the consultants might also uplift their quality on grounds of current scientific practices.

In the seminar, Representatives of more than 20 reputed national and international firms have asked questions which were satisfactorily answered by the Director General (M&E). He explained that this was an introductory Seminar and detail coordination would remain intact through pre-bid meetings and electronic/telephonic communication.