He stated this while addressing the society’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) on Thursday.
“We have identified the responsible elements by name and have decided the penalties in our report, which was completed in six months,” said Akram, who did not wish to disclose any names before the report went public. He said the report would be placed in the coming NA session as it was the property of the House. “The responsible elements will face the music within a week or so,” he maintained.
“The investigation report will not be a mere piece of paper, but a future guideline for housing societies,” said the convener amid hopeful applause from the society’s members.
He revealed that only 220 kanal of land was available when the committee took over for investigation, as opposed to the members’ investment in 1,035 kanal of land. “We need at least 1,900-kanal land if we are to accommodate all 32,000 members of the society,” he said. He told participants that the bulk of the society’s land was in the possession of the city’s “Qabza mafia”, adding that 100-kanal of land had been retrieved, making the current total of available land 320-kanal.
The society had a bank balance of Rs340 million in 2008, which had been reduced to only Rs237,000 when the committee took over the society’s affairs. “The society’s main office looked more like a rest house than an office,” he remarked.
“NA employees, city administration officials, contractors and consultants were all involved in the embezzlement,” he revealed.
He said payments worth Rs90 million were made to the contractor, who is still demanding another Rs40 million without having done any work on the ground. A consultant was paid Rs7 million, despite the fact that he was not technically a consultant as he did not fulfill the Capital Development Authority’s law of holding a university degree in town planning.
Some government employees were getting salaries from the society despite the fact that it was against the rules.
The records show that there were some refunds, but it does not include the identities of those to whom payments were made. The implementation process of the committee’s recommendations would be monitored by the House and Library Committee and any responsible department, whether it is NAB or FIA, would give a monthly briefing to the House about its progress.
He did, however, have some good news for the swindled investors. He said negotiations with adjoining societies were underway for a joint venture to help out poor investors who had lost their money.
An investor, Muhammad Zamir Akhtar, said that he had invested Rs0.39 million for a seven-marla plot since 1997, but had lost all his hard-earned money. He was not hopeful about getting a plot as there was “nothing left with the society except empty files.” He believed it would be better if the committee members, the NA Speaker and Deputy Speaker helped them in recovering the money from the embezzlers.
Aslam Khan, an NA employee, was equally pessimistic about his dream to have his own house after losing Rs.0.7 million. “I even sold my wife’s jewelery and various other household items for paying the installments but got nothing in the end,” he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 21st, 2011.
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