The state-owned postal service, Pakistan Post, has awarded the contract for running its Centralised Software System at a high cost of Rs130 million per annum — almost double than the actual cost — to a single bidder, The Express Tribune reported.

According to reports, the postal service has rejected offers of several other IT firms, including that of an old service provider that ran a similar project at a cost of Rs70 million per annum for seven years till 2018.

The move, reports said, will result in a loss of around Rs100-120 million to the national exchequer over the next two years.

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IT experts, familiar with the services provided by Pakistan Post, have said that the competitive bid should not exceed Rs80 million in any case and it was higher by Rs50 million per year.

According to reports, the rest of the technical bids were deliberately rejected to avoid price comparison and allow the remaining one technically qualified bidder to demand the amount as it liked.

Furthermore, established IT players with more experience of running similar projects have complained that the contract was awarded to a new and unknown entrant called AIMS without any proper comparison of experience.

The rest of the IT firms were of the view that if the tender was floated again and was fairly evaluated, a maximum cost of close to Rs80 million would have to be borne, and it would have saved the national exchequer around Rs100 million over the two-year validity period of the contract.