Massive irregularities in construction of Islamabad Airport: Audit report

The Auditor General of Pakistan has found massive irregularities in the construction of the new Islamabad Airport.

The auditor general's report for 2016-2017 has detected irregularly awarding of work to ineligible contractors in violation of rules causing losses running into billions of Pakistani rupees to the tax payers' money, The Express Tribune reported.

The report which was recently tabled in the Pakistan parliament also singled out the violations of the Planning Commission's project management guidelines, including rules of the Public Procurement Regulations Authority in several projects.

The construction of the airport has been delayed due to the delay in tendering process causing inflated rates.

"The unjustified delay in the tendering process caused award of work at higher rates without revision of the initial Project Cycle (PC) I which was due to weak internal controls," the audit reports stated.

"The bid evaluation process was not in line with evaluation criteria provided in bidding documents," it added.

The auditor general also identified internal control weaknesses to the Pakistan International Airline Corporation.