Minister gets KPT chief sacked after refusal to award contract without bidding: report

Federal Minister for Port and Shipping Ali Zaidi pushed for the removal of then Karachi Port Trust (KPT) chairman Rear Admiral (r) Jamil Akhtar after the latter refused to grant a contract for a mega project to the minister’s blue-eyed company, a journalist claimed. Speaking on a Din TV show, journalist Mumtaz Bhatti claimed that Zaidi wanted the former KPT chairman to award the contract to MIBT, a company owned by the friend of the shipping minister, for $70m. Akhtar refused and told the minister that the contract will only be awarded via standard bidding procedure. However, in the bidding process, a company named RAMD made a bid of $13-15m for the same task which the MIBT had asked $70m for, he claimed. Subsequently, Zaidi allegedly got the finance director removed, but that didn’t work out. Eventually, Zaidi in connivance with a secretary and his ‘friend’ in Islamabad sent the chairman of the KPT packing. The federal government removed Akhtar from the post of the chairman on March 25 with immediate effect. The Established Division, Government of Pakistan had issued notification in this regard on Wednesday. The notification had said “The Federal Government is pleased to remove Rear Admiral Jamil Akhtar (retd) from the post of Chairman Karachi Port Trust (KPT) under Ministry of Maritime Affairs, forthwith by modifying/reducing his period of initial appointment in terms of Section 11 of KPT Act, 1886, with immediate effect”.