DHA refurbishment charge

KARACHI: This is with reference to a report in your newspaper of November 25 “Residents take DHA to court”. I am the former general secretary of the Defence Society Residents Association (DSRA), the resident association which is the main petitioner in this case, and the current general secretary of a countrywide federal which is an umbrella for all DHA residents associations (including the DSRA).

I would like to clarify some of the facts regarding the above report and the comments of the DHA’s counsel. Contrary to the counsel’s assertion, the DSRA was not informed in advance by the DHA of its intention to levy the so-called ‘refurbishment charge’. In fact, when members of the DSRA came to know that such a proposal was in the offing, they asked the DHA about it. They were told that no such charge was being planned but this was contradicted by a notice posted at the DHA office.

There is more to this as well, in particular the laying of a stormwater drains network in the area. After severe flooding in many parts of DHA following rains in 2007, there was a strong demand for an overhaul of the drainage network. The residents were of the view that as a developer, it was the DHA’s duty to spend money received as part of development funds from residents on providing them basic development infrastructure in the area. It later came to light that the system that was built did not improve on any prior existing one but rather was built from scratch. So, the refurbishment charge argument, that it is being used to pay for a new improved drainage system, does not hold.

As per the DHA’s counsel’s own admission, the authority receives no money from the federal government or except from any other source but residents and hence all its assets in terms of built structures have been accumulated thanks to monies received from DHA residents. So for it to levy a ‘refurbishment charge’ makes little sense.

Asad Kizilbash

Published in The Express Tribune, December 1^st, 2010.