A misreported news article by DAWN has surfaced.

Taking DAWN’s bias take on the bidding process into account, it is of great important to enlighten DAWN and the public regarding the rules and regulations for direct contracting with state owned entities as defined in the Public Procurement Regulatory Authority PPRA rule. While defying journalistic standards and ethics, DAWN, without properly investigating the matter, has based its story on a mere report, which was submitted to IHC by the counsel for a private firm that challenged the award of contracts to NLC and FWO without inviting tenders and competitive process. If DAWN was bearer of ethical journalism, it would have waited for the outcome / verdict of the IHC rather than formulating a self-perceived opinion beforehand. Arguably, any contractor can challenge the “bidding” based on some personal grudge or apprehensions. However, that doesn’t necessarily imply that the ‘bidding process’ was illegitimate or unlawful. It is pertinent to mention that that PPRA rules allow direct contracting with state owned entities (SOEs), and based on these well-defined grounds, the direct contracts awarded to NLC and FWO, are justified and through and through in accordance with the laws and regulations. The amendment in the procurement rules was carried out by Imran Khan’s government in 2021, allowing the government to award contracts to SOE without floating public tenders. This was done to ensure transparency and efficiency. The amendments in the PPRA rules are also part of conditions set for $400 million loan by the World Bank. These parameters were specifically conditioned to eradicate the issues that the civic entities faced from private contractors, who employed corrupt and fraudulent practices, and their performance failure persisted during the execution of the contract. Direct bidding / contacting isn’t an alienated concept. Many governments around the world, like Saudia Arabia, China, etc, rely on direct bidding for an efficient and timely product delivery. DAWN should adhere to the journalistic values and publish news articles based on credible facts and thorough investigation. Maligning state owned entities based on distorted narratives / instances only harm the credibility of DAWN, the day is near, when the general public would quit following and trusting DAWN for spearheading sensationalism.

https://twitter.com/PoliticalPrism_/status/1712874289219911891?t=NOaiKHE7vZmGbbP6Zf8yuA&s=08