{"id":11060,"date":"2026-07-26T15:28:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T15:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/?p=11060"},"modified":"2026-07-26T15:29:32","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T15:29:32","slug":"tip-asks-pm-to-halt-rs20bn-paa-e-gate-contract-over-alleged-ppra-violations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/2026\/07\/26\/tip-asks-pm-to-halt-rs20bn-paa-e-gate-contract-over-alleged-ppra-violations\/","title":{"rendered":"TIP asks PM to halt Rs20bn PAA e-Gate contract over alleged PPRA violations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ansar Abbasi | July 17, 2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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ISLAMABAD: Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) has urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to immediately suspend the Pakistan Airports Authority\u2019s (PAA) Rs20 billion e-Gate project and order a high-level inquiry into what it describes as serious violations of public procurement laws in the proposed award of the contract.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a letter addressed to the Prime Minister\u2019s Office on July 16, TIP said it had received a complaint alleging that PAA had misused Rule 42(f) of the Public Procurement Rules (PPRA) 2004 to abandon an open international competitive bidding process and move towards awarding the project to a single private entity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the TIP letter, the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) had invited international competitive bids for e-Gates, biometric verification and passport authentication systems in 2020, but no contract was awarded. In 2024, after Pakistan Airports Authority floated a fresh expression of interest, three firms were shortlisted for further consideration. However, the complaint alleges that PAA subsequently abandoned the competitive process and instead opted to invoke PPRA Rule 42(f) in favour of a single company.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The letter said that Rule 42(f) is intended only for exceptional procurements involving emergencies, overriding public interest or government-to-government or state-owned entities. It maintains that none of these conditions apply because the proposed contract is for 24 months and no recorded justification has been presented explaining why a technically complex border security project should be awarded to a single private company without competition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also questioned the eligibility of the company, alleging that preliminary checks of public databases did not establish the company\u2019s registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP), its presence on the Federal Board of Revenue\u2019s Active Taxpayer List, sales tax registration or registration with the Pakistan Engineering Council- requirements it says are mandatory for such procurements. The consultants appointed by PAA in January 2026 later recommended that the tender be issued only to the company by invoking Rule 42(f), a recommendation that TIP says requires independent scrutiny. The TIP also raised the issue of an unsolicited proposal submitted by a foreign firm for passenger information and passenger name record systems. According to the letter, acceptance of that proposal could impose an additional financial burden exceeding Rs50 billion annually on passengers through a security surcharge and raises questions about the legal basis for entertaining unsolicited proposals outside the PPRA framework.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Transparency International Pakistan said that, prima facie, the allegations appeared to have merit. The organisation recommended immediate suspension of the procurement process pending completion of an inquiry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TIP also urged the government to direct the PAA to proceed through open, transparent international competitive bidding in accordance with PPRA rules if the inquiry confirms the alleged irregularities and to initiate action against officials found responsible for any violations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ansar Abbasi | July 17, 2026 ISLAMABAD: Transparency International Pakistan (TIP) has urged Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to immediately<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[78],"class_list":["post-11060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-international-the-news","tag-international-the-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11060"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11061,"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11060\/revisions\/11061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alacpakistan.com\/event2024\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}