At a fast pace

Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar used his discretionary powers to purchase 46 brand new luxury cars for his cabinet members but the public centric project of plying 200 electric buses in Lahore and elsewhere in Punjab is facing hiccups.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) led Punjab government has finally placed an order for purchasing 46 brand new 1.85 cc cars for the cabinet members. An advance payment of Rs210 million has already been made and the ministers are likely to get their new cars in the first week of May.

Buzdar has to exercise his discretionary power to get the deal done. The government was finding it hard to manage the maintenance cost of 2018 Model 1.6 cc cars already in use by the ministers.

This was the pretext which was used in the cabinet meeting in October 2021 to approve the proposal. Though there were ministers in the cabinet who opposed the idea of purchasing new cars in the face of severe financial crunch, the proposal was approved with a majority vote.

Despite approval by the cabinet, Finance Minister Hashim Jawan Bakht flatly refused to sign the summary pertaining to purchasing new cars and termed it extravagance.

Some of the ministers including Hashim Jawan Bakht said they had already been using their personal luxury cars for official purposes and that purchasing new cars was against the ongoing austerity drive.

CM Buzdar, who, according to the recent survey of the Institute for Public Opinion Research (IPOR) is leading in satisfaction level for developmental works in comparison to all the three other chief ministers, wanted new cars for his ministers at any cost.

Initially, the CM wanted a bombproof car for himself but this idea had to be dropped from the list at the final stage. Insiders claimed that Buzdar was feeling hurt after an influential figure in Punjab took away his official luxury bomb proof car worth Rs220 million in September 2021.

Later on, this luxury car was returned to the CM office to get its worn-out tyres replaced.

The CM office had to spend Rs20 million to import the bombproof tyres from Germany and afterwards the car was again returned to an influential figure, who is still using it till date.

After his failure to retrieve the luxury bomb proof car from that influential figure, the CM got a summary moved in the cabinet to get a new bomb proof car for himself and 1.8 cc cars for his ministers.

The proposal of a new bomb proof car for the CM had to be dropped because of criticism from certain quarters and the displeasure expressed by the PM office. Nevertheless, the CM stuck to the proposal of getting new cars for his ministers.

The refusal by the finance minister led the CM to use his overriding discretionary powers. He convened and chaired the rarely held “Sub Committee of Cabinet on Finance” meeting in the first week of January and himself gave the approval to it.

The ministers are to get new cars in May and the previous ones will remain in the fleet. While the development conscious Buzdar is quick to use discretionary power for the purchase of new cars for his ministers, the dream of plying 400 electric buses in Lahore and elsewhere is yet to be materialized.

The Punjab government brought forth the proposal of plying 200 environmentally friendly electric buses in Lahore in 2019. The Punjab transport department was given the task of executing the job.

The project was approved by PM Imran Khan and afterwards by the provincial cabinet with the estimated cost of Rs5 billion.

According to the plan, the government was to ply electric buses at the Mall and the canal road with LED Screens installed at every stop apprising the passengers the exact location of the buses and arrival time.

The tendering process and procurement of the buses was to be done by the Lahore Transport Company which was non-existent at that time. It took the government almost one and a half years to make the LTC functional at the cost of three secretaries of the department.

The moment the LTC was made functional, the government changed its mood.

CM Usman Buzdar wanted electric buses in his home town of DG Khan as well. The Punjab government was further conveyed by the PM office that the premier also wanted electric buses in Mianwali, the hometown of the premier.

Finally it was decided that electric buses would be plied in five districts including Lahore, DG Khan, Mianwali, Faisalabad and Bahawalpur to accommodate all the heavyweights. It is learnt that the government has decided to buy 400 buses instead of 200 with the revised estimated cost of Rs10 billion.

Now, it is decided that the process of tendering and procuring will be done through the Punjab Transport Company as the LTC scope is limited to Lahore only.  In absence of any successful business model, the bureaucracy was reluctant to handle it.

It was proposed to hire the services of a consultant to deal with it. It is learnt that a blue-eyed boy of the CM is hired as consultant on hefty emolument for purchasing the buses. However, the process of evolving the PTC is still under process.

Sources within bureaucracy are uncertain if this public project would ever be materialized due to too many bottlenecks.  Many of them question the need for plying electric buses in small districts like Mianwali and DG Khan. Insiders claimed that the government is now thinking of buying diesel buses instead of electric ones for their being cost effective.

Meanwhile, the Punjab Chief Minister’s Office claimed that the PTI government has significantly reduced the provincial government’s expenses under the leadership of CM Usman Buzdar.

The CM Office pointed out that expenditures have been cut down by over 60% as compared to expenditures during the tenure of the Shehbaz Sharif-led PML-N government.

According to a spokesperson for the CM office, national resources were used carelessly during Shehbaz Sharif’s last tenure in 2017-18 but the incumbent CM has remarkably reduced them from 2020-2021 while setting a great example of frugality.

Likewise, they claimed that the summary of plying buses in five districts of Punjab has been moved to the Planning and Development department for further processing and there was no delay in it.