Adding muscle: CDA security directorate gets 200 more guards

They will help protect officials during anti-encroachment drive

ISLAMABAD: In order to add some muscle to the ongoing anti-encroachment drive in the capital, the civic body has transferred 200 guards to the Security Directorate.

The transferred guards were previously either absent from their duties or had been posted at different locations around the capital.  With the guards handed over to the Security Directorate, they will help protect officials of the Capital Development Authority in (CDA) in their operations against encroachments, nonconforming use buildings and other illegal activities.

“The implementation of the strategy [of adding guards to the security directorate] will…boost capabilities and capacity of the authority,” Capital Development Authority (CDA) Member Administration Yasir Peerzada said in a statement on Friday. The move came after Peerzada supervised an exercise to trace guards absent or posted at other locations.

Around 52 of the transferred security guards had been posted with the Maintenance Directorate, three at the Mechanical Division, 15 at the Parliament Lodges, eight from the Aiwan-e-Sadar, 51 from the Parliament House (Coordination Directorate), 20 from the Bulk Water Management, two from C-E Lab, nine from the MPO Directorate and three were from Special Project.

These guards had been deployed for duties other than security or were absent from their duties entirely. Similarly, 16 security guards were transferred from DMA, two from IT Directorate and one each from HRD-II, EM-I, Water Supply Directorate, Sector Development Div-I and Law Directorate. The enforcement directorate of the CDA has been facing a shortage of staff to carry out operations against encroachments in the city.

“The directorate was facing an acute shortage of operational and secretarial staff,” a CDA official told The Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity.

The source added that owing to the deployment of these guards at locations around the capital, the designated assistant and deputy directors could not properly supervise them nor could they properly conduct vigilance or operations.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 14^th, 2017.