At taxpayers’ expense: Two former RCB officials allowed to pay nominal rent

RCB allows low rent for the two bungalows in occupation of two officers

RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi’s cantonment authorities have approved lower rents for two houses allocated to former executive officers (EDOs) of the cantonment board in violation of objections raised by the auditors, it has been learnt.

According to some documents available with The Express Tribune, the Rawalpindi Cantonment Board (RCB) authorities in a board meeting recently decided to charge Rs25,000 per month from two former executive officers for the bungalows situated in posh Westridge locality.

In the meeting, attended by board president, vice-president, elected and nominated members, the authorities also took up the issue of allotment of two bungalows to the former executive officers Rana Manzoor Ahmed Khan and Sajjad Khan.

Manzoor Khan was allocated the bungalow on February 27, 2014, and Sajjad Khan on July 1, 2014.

The RCB officials started charging Rs10,000 a month as rent from them.

“A number of bungalows were constructed to overcome the shortage of official accommodation being faced by the RCB for its officers/staff but allotment of two bungalows other than serving officers of the board stood as unauthorized,” the audit report for the financial year 2014-2015 notes.

Each bungalow is a newly-constructed double-storey building having total covered area of 10,465 square feet or 38.50 marlas and 6,363 square feet or 23.50 marlas located at Westridge, where the same should have been charged at a monthly rent of Rs100,000 due to the fact that the minimum rent of bungalows in the vicinity is by no way less than Rs100,000 per month.

“Hence, the balance amount needs to be recovered from both officers, the audit report recommended.”

According to the auditors, the RCB was required to recover approximately over Rs1.5 million from each of the former executive officers for keeping the bungalows.

The authorities, on the other hand, decided to fix the monthly rent of the two bungalows each Rs25,000 and decided to recover the rest of amount from the former officers.

Decision of the board depended on the fact the RCB executive officer was entitled to receiving Rs25,000 as monthly ceiling.

Commenting on the board’s decision, a senior RCB official said that the decision does not commensurate with rules of the board.

He said that though it was the prerogative of the board to take decisions independently but it should have started an inquiry against the unauthorised allotment of the bungalows to former officials on lower rents.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 13^th, 2016.