NPA blacklists 83 firms, saves 15b afs in 18 months

KABUL (Pajhwok): The National Procurement Authority (NPA) blacklisted 83 companies on the charges of infringement, falsification of documents and providing false information and added 165 million afghanis to the national exchequer during the past 18 months, the authority said on Monday.       

The organization said the 83 companies had been barred from participating in procurement process for two to five years and referred to the Attorney General’s Office (AGO).

In the case of a repetition of violations, forged documents and false information, the mentioned firms would be denied participation in procurement process for 10 years or permanently.

The NPA was established through a presidential order after formation of the unity government for preventing financial corruption in the ministries and sectoral departments.   

Yama Yari, the NPA head, told a press conference here that since the authority’s establishment it had assessed 2,000 contracts worth 200 billion afs, of which 1,800 contracts worth 179 billion afs were approved by President Ashraf Ghani.  

He said there had been a drastic difference in prices of ration contracts, which were later awarded against lower prices saving 15 billion afs relating to the ministries of interior,  defence dormitories and other organs.  

“The contract for maintaining Mazar-i-Sharif railway line costs in total $32 million annually but after efforts and talks by the government with Uzbekistan, currently the contract cost is reduced to $19 million.”    

He said the public procurement in current conditions was of great significance and played key role for Afghanistan because nearly 19 percent of impure domestic products and nearly 50 percent of national budget were spent through public procurement, he added.    

He said Afghanistan in the past years had seen huge financial losses due to widespread corruption in the procurement area.

Wasting and embezzling public resources, losing people’s confidence in government for its ineffective services, economical and social anomalies were consequences ineffective, inefficient and non-transparent procurement in the past, he added.

He said many efforts had been made for institutionalizing of the culture of transparency, accountability and fighting against corruption in public procurement since the launch of the NPA, which also had great achievements.  

He said growth of domestic products was given a priority in contracts and the ministries of defence and interior had been directed to consider domestic products in rations and other contracts.

The NPC head, while calling activities of his organization and the commission as transparent, said all NPA weekly sessions were monitored by national and international transparency watchdogs. He asked media outlets to help the NPA fight against financial corruption.

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