The Minister of State for Housing and Works is struggling to keep his house in order as its officials have raised concerns regarding the role of the Estate Office. STOCK IMAGE
ISLAMABAD:
Over the years, the housing ministry has gained notoriety due to serious allegations of corruption against its officials, ranging from financial irregularities to illegal allotment of housing units and plots, ties to land grabbers and irregularities in various housing schemes.
Some officials attribute frequent changes in the top bureaucracy to the mess in the ministry.
The Minister of State for Housing and Works is struggling to keep his house in order as its officials have raised concerns regarding the role of the Estate Office (EO).
It was on March 2, 2014 when a fire broke out in the estate office’s record room at the ministry’s offices housed at Shaheed-e-Millat Secretariat. According to an initial inquiry conducted by the ministry officials the fire was a deliberate attempt to destroy records of illegal allotments.
Record of allotment of hundreds of government houses was also burnt in the incident. The fire caused a loss of Rs4.5 million, according to the ministry sources.
The ministry forwarded the case of the fire to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) in April 2014. The ministry provided names of five officers including a joint estate officer who could have possibly been involved in the incident.
Till to-date no progress has been made on the case.
A similar fire in 2007 in the same building caused an estimated loss of Rs19.7 million to the ministry.
Majority of ministry officials, this correspondent spoke with suspected that the fire was an attempt to cover up cases of illegal allotments extended by EO officials.
Housing and Works Secretary Shahrukh Arbab sought to computerise all the housing data in the country but the plan had yet to materialise.
“The Estate Office staff is not cooperating with us and are creating hurdles,” an officer at the ministry said on condition of anonymity.
The official said that in Karachi alone there were over 4,000 illegal occupants of government residences, adding there was no official data available that provides the exact figure.
The official said that a similar situation existed in the federal capital too where most government officers did not vacate their official residences after retirement, while many houses had been rented out.
Interestingly, Arbab is the sixth person to take charge as secretary in the past one year.
Senator Zafar Ali Shah in a meeting of the Senate’s Standing Committee on Housing suggested that a secretary should at least serve for a period of three years in one ministry so as to make them more accountable.
Moreover, the ministry is struggling to materialise Prime Minister’s Apna Ghar Housing Scheme under which 500,000 houses meant for people belonging to low-income group will be built.
Minister for Housing and Works Akram Khan Durrani recently held a meeting with the board of directors of the scheme.
Such meetings are a routine matter at the ministry for a year and a half with little to write home about.
The minister visits his office once or twice a week only. Moreover, matters are highly centralised at the ministry, which makes it difficult for lower-ranking officials to expedite matters at hand, said the ministry official.
Federal Government Employees Housing Foundation (FGEHF) is another scheme where irregularities have been found. Few individuals have been allotted 1,200 plots in the housing scheme.
The ministry has been facing a daunting task in removing land grabbers from the scheme.
Similarly, development work on 588 housing units on Kuri Road that was initiated under the Pakistan Housing Authority Foundation (PHAF) in 2012 continues to be delayed due to various issues between the ministry and the contractor.
The development work of over 3,200 residential plots in FGEHF in Bhara Kahu has also been in the doldrums since 2009.
Deputy Secretary Muhammad Saleem said that they were trying to address all the problems despite the challenges.
Published in The Express Tribune, March 30th, 2015.
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