Officials accused of taking bribe for tender document

CHITRAL, Dec 21: Contractors here have accused the Local Council Board officials of corruption. Abul Lais Khan Ramdasi and Jehanzeb told reporters here that the government had introduced e-tendering to check corruption but the corrupt officials had sabotaged it by seeking bribe from contractors for benefiting from it. They said they were supposed to download tender forms from the LCB website free of charge but the LCB officials illegally sought Rs1,000 each for the password to have access to the facility. The contractors said they paid registration fee to LCB for enlistment with the local government department and therefore, they were entitled to get the password free of charge. They said the government’s claim to eliminate corruption from the tendering process was false as corrupt officials continued to rule the roost. The contractors said earlier they had to pay Rs200 to Rs300 to the relevant clerk in Chitral office to secure tender document but currently they paid Rs1,000 to the clerk concerned at the LCB Peshawar offices for password. They demanded the relevant authorities to step in without delay to ease their misery.–Zahiruddin]]>