Recurring malpractices: CDA embroiled in illegal plot allotment to employees

Over 300 staffers were given plots in I-8 at nominal rates, transferred at exorbitant rates.


Peer Muhammad February 10, 2014
Over 300 staffers were given plots in I-8 at nominal rates, transferred at exorbitant rates. PHOTO: FILE

ISLAMABAD: For those who thought the repertoire of misdeeds attributable to Capital Development Authority (CDA) was not expansive enough, a new transgression has come to the fore.

Since 2007, employees of the CDA have not only managed to get over 300 expensive plots in the prime location of the capital’s I-8 sector, but also transferred them to receive hefty money.

In a gross violation of CDA rules, the civic agency has not only carved out a policy to benefit its own employees by allotting expensive plots of their choice in I-8 at nominal rates, but has also relaxed the rules for instantly selling and transferring them at markedly expensive rates.

According to the criteria, plots for employees of the civic agency could be allotted at a certain ratio in each sector once the sector was open to development. However, the CDA violated the rules and allotted more than 300 plots in a single, choice sector, which most employees have sold and transferred for profits of millions of rupees.

A list recently provided to the National Assembly lists the plots allotted to 101 employees from BS-16 to BS-20 in all four sub sectors of I-8, near the heart of the city and considered one of the more expensive sectors in the capital.

During the last five years, the CDA allotted 355.55 square yard plots in sector I-8 to director Najma Azhar, CDA doctor Dr Arifa Ghulab, assistant director Shahid Latif Janjua, gynaecologist Dr Fauzia, Abdul Majeed Janjua and deputy director Manzoor Hussain Shah. Besides these, around 100 other CDA officers have transferred plots of similar size which had been allotted in the same sector.

Moreover, around 200 other CDA officials in lower grades were allotted residential plots in I-8 who also sold and transferred them. These officials range from staff nurses in the CDA hospital to admin officers of BS-16.

Sources in the CDA explained that a majority of the employees were allotted plots during the tenures of former CDA chairman Kamran Lashari and Farkhand Iqbal. Iqbal is a Planning Division officer who was appointed head of the civic body by former prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. He was later removed by prime minister Raja Pervez Ashraf after a short-lived and controversial tenure. He is currently behind bars on charges of illegally allotting many commercial and residential plots in various sectors at abnormally low rates.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 10th, 2014.

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