Ministry of Commerce (MoC) has had a meeting with the public sector entities (PSEs) and has directed to prefer the domestic companies for the procurement of engineering goods, in accordance with the Statutory Regulatory Order (SRO) 2019. The Ministry has been receiving letters and messages from various stakeholders, complaining that the public sector companies have been unable to procure the engineering goods from within the country as envisaged in the SRO 827 12001 of December 03, 2001 since an amendment was made therein vide SRO 606(l)/201 9 on June 10,2019.
According to the Ministry of Commerce, this issue has already been discussed in detail earlier with the relevant stakeholders and their representatives. These stakeholders included M/s Gresham’s (Pvt.) Ltd., Engineering Development Bank (EDB), Pakistan Engineering Council (PEC), Pakistan State Oil (PSO), Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA), Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Limited (SNGPL), Sui Southern Gas Pipeline Limited (SSGPL), Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (PPRA), Ministry of Law & Justice and Ministry of Science, etc., wherein it was decided that a clarification should be issued to address the ambiguity arising out of implementation of the SRO 606(1)) 2019, amending para- 4(l) of the SRO 827(l)/2001.
Representatives of the ministry clarified that para-3 and para-4 of the SRO 827 (1)2001 (as amended by SRO 606(1)2019) shall be read and construed together. According to this, Public sector agencies shall preferably procure their requirements of engineering goods from within the country and omit such items from the list of barter, credit and loans, and shall be bound to accord price preference to local engineering goods manufacturers in their procurements of engineering goods.
