*PESHAWAR: *Following a slew of executive resignations from TransPeshawarearlier this month, the mass transit project being built in Peshawar hasrun into another setback after a senior engineer working on its first phasestepped down, but not before making shocking disclosures about the poorstandard of work on the mega project.
Gohar Muhammad Khan, an assistant engineer for project consultant MottMacDonald Pakistan (MMP), had tendered his resignation to theKhyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief secretary, less than a month after joining theproject while voicing concerns over the quality of work on the Bus RapidTransit (BRT) project.
He blamed the contractor and poor supervision over the project by thePeshawar Development Authority (PDA) and associated consultants.
Gohar’s resignation letter, which does not carry a date — but an MMPreleased the engineer’s termination letter dated May 28 — has beencirculating on social media for the past two days and presents a damningindictment of how desperate the government was to build the project.
“The contractor of the project has sublet the entire project to differentnon-technical people who don’t even know about construction,” it read,adding that neither has the contractor submitted a schedule for completingthe project nor has a progress report be submitted.
To make matters worse, he said that those tasked with building such a megaproject were doing so blind.
“Drawings and specifications of the project are not available with the siteinspector and concerned engineers and the contractor do the same at theirown level,” the engineer claimed, adding that when engineers did visit thesite to check on progress, they too did so without having any plans.
“The engineers were found just to visit the site without any drawing andspecifications.”
Moreover, owing to poor supervision by consultants and the PDA, the qualityand quantity of the project have suffered.
“Structural failure can occur at any time due to the poor foundationsbuilt for the BRT and, as a result, casualties and damage can take place atany time in the future,” Gohar warns.
“The contractor has been paid a huge amount for nothing which needs to beaddressed a huge corruption is involved,” he alleged.
In the letter, Gohar points out that he had told the PDA director generalregarding his reservations over the quality and quantity of the project andurged him to take necessary action. But his warnings were not heeded whichis why he had is submitted his resignation.
Earlier, in the first week of May TransPeshawar Peshawar (an urban mobilitycompany established by the K-P government for the purchase and operationsof buses of the BRT) CEO Altaf Durrani had been fired by outgoing chiefminister Pervez Khattak for allegedly causing delays in purchasing a fleetof buses for the BRT.
The TransPeshawar Board of Directors Chairman Javed Iqbal, the companychief financial officer Safdar Awan and General Manager Operations andMarket Development Mohammad Imran had all resigned in reaction to Khattak’strigger-happy action.
The resignations and CEO removal left the TransPeshawar Peshawar headlessand drew criticism.