The auction of a contract to automate and manage the city’s parking facilities, which was expected to be decided before the end of last month, has been delayed till after the new provincial government takes over, The Express Tribune has learnt.
The Lahore Parking Company (LPC), which is supervising the privatisation process, received technical and financial bids on April 16. Previously, the company said that it would evaluate the technical bids in a week and then open and assess the financial bids of the companies that qualified.
However, the LPC has not yet disclosed the results of its technical evaluation of the bids, nor has it stated when it will do so. The bidding companies have been told merely to wait.
LPC officials said that the decision on the auction had been deferred because the new managing director, appointed amidst the transfers enacted by the caretaker government, was reluctant to make a decision. They said that the acting managing director had asked the authorities to reconsider his posting.
Mian Shakeel was replaced as managing director on an acting basis by Chaudhry Muhammad Ashraf, the executive district officer for Works and Services. Asked about the auction, Ashraf told The Express Tribune that he wouldn’t answer any questions about the LPC. Asked why, he said: “I only have acting charge. I have no interest in this.”
LPC Media Manager Fasiuddin said that under the terms and conditions of the auction, the company had 90 days to evaluate the bids. Asked why they had earlier stated that the bids would be evaluated in seven days, he said that the process was taking longer than expected. He said that he could not say when the assessment would be completed.
The Turkish company UCS, Saudi company Advanced Global Communication Networks, and a joint venture of Mansha Brothers and a foreign company submitted bids for the parking contract. LPC sources said that AGCN had the strongest technical bid.
LPC officials had hoped for more than three bids for the contract to manage the city’s parking facilities, which they said could generate some Rs1 billion a year in revenue. Fourteen companies had attended the pre-bid conference on March 4 and obtained the bid document after the contract was advertised on February 17.
The bids were initially to be submitted on March 19, but the companies at the pre-bid conference sought more time to study the revenue potential of the city’s parking areas and the deadline was extended to April 2. The 14 companies that expressed an interest were the Frontier Works Organisation, Toll Link, Inbox AGCM, UCS, Mesi Enterprises. Golden Eagle Training, Chaudhry and Company, Vital International, KT, AA Enterprises, Future Link Green Parking, Theeta Technology and ICT. Toll Link, AGCM, ICT and FWO then again sought an extension and the bid date was changed to April 16.
According to the LPC, the city has around 250 parking lots which can accommodate between 10,000 and 12,000 vehicles at any one time. On average, each parking lot holds five times its capacity in one day.
The company that wins the bid will get a seven-year contract. The company will have to pay a monthly rate to the LPC, which will pay 75% of its profits to the city district government, on a yearly basis. If no company qualifies to win the contract, LPC will try and manage the parking facilities itself.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 13th, 2013.