Poor planning National Highway Authority’s weakest point, Public Accounts Committee told

The National Highway Authority (NHA) faces significant challenges, with poor planning identified as its weakest point, according to the Ministry of Communications. This issue came to light during a grueling 90-minute session with the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), where members expressed deep concern over the poor condition of major highways and the delays in road projects spanning the country.

The first audit objection highlighted the non-execution of Rs4.3 billion worth of works on a 167-kilometre stretch of the Jaglot-Skardu Road, which had been awarded to the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) for improvement, upgradation, and widening. The committee member, Ali Sher Mehsud, acknowledged that the road was not typical and that landslides had delayed the project multiple times. Despite this, Mehsud assured the committee that the project would be completed by December 2026.

However, the committee's concerns over faulty planning were not unfounded. The Auditor General's office noted that the contractor's failure to complete the remaining work necessitated a financial adjustment or deduction. Another audit raised concerns over a defective design, resulting in additional work through a variation order without open competition, which caused a loss of Rs4.080 billion to the public exchequer.

The audit also revealed an irregular payment of Rs1.869 billion made to a contractor without proper approval, stemming from an escalation for provisional works.

All these issues pointed towards a dire need for strengthening both the planning and design wings of the NHA. Mehsud assured the committee that a specialised team was being hired to address the capacity limitations in highway design. Additionally, the consultant involved in the Chitral-Kalash Valley Road project had already been blacklisted by the Auditor General's office, and measures were being taken to ensure proper oversight in the future.