PCBL: Headless board leaves Rs102b assets under threat

PCBL has been inactive since last chairman resigned in Feb.

LAHORE:

The Punjab Cooperatives Board for Liquidation (PCBL) has been without a permanent chairman since February, leaving the embattled institution increasingly weak as it fends off land grabbers, and unscrupulous officials, interested in its assets of over a hundred billion rupees, The Express Tribune has learnt.

A group in the Cooperatives Department is said to be lobbying for the board to be merged with the department, which would give these officials a much greater influence in how the PCBL’s assets are sold off, said officials in the Civil Secretariat, warning that this could lead to greater corruption.

The board is currently led by an acting chairman. Since the last chairman, Nazar Chohan, resigned in February, the PCBL has not convened a single meeting to discuss cases in the courts, claims on properties or the issuance of no objection certificates (NOCs). Land grabbers have meanwhile been trying to take over the board’s property. Recently, a group grabbed agriculture land worth Rs11 billion in a Lahore suburb.

The PCBL website has been closed for two months, indicating that those who work at the board are under no pressure to perform in the absence of a chairman.

The PCBL was formed in 1992 under an ordinance which was converted to an act one year later. Its job was to liquidate 102 cooperative societies which had been deemed defunct or ‘undesirable’ after an inquiry commission found them to be involved in massive irregularities and illegal banking operations. At that point the board had to deal with 266,000 claims amounting to about Rs13 billion.

Some Rs2 billion in claims were paid off when the board mortgaged the properties of the five biggest financial cooperatives and was able to pay off deposit holders of Rs50,000 or less.

In 1998, then Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif posted Tasneem Noorani as chairman and Nazar Chohan as the official in charge of properties. The new management banned the issuance of NOCs and retrieved and fenced land that was under threat from land grabbers. A cooperatives cell was established in NAB Punjab in the late 1990s to prosecute those who had embezzled funds.

In September 2008, the chief minister again posted Chohan to the PCBL, this time as chairman. Under his leadership, criminal cases were lodged against big wigs of the National Accountability Bureau Punjab and the Anti Corruption Establishment Punjab. The board also reviewed NOCs issued for properties worth billions of rupees.

According to the PCBL’s valuations, it owns assets worth over Rs102 billion, including Rs60 billion in disputed properties, Rs5.5 billion in undisputed properties, Rs5.0 billion in loans, Rs30 billion in hidden assets and Rs1.5 billion in cash.

The board has distributed over Rs8 billion to claimants since its formation. The board, on the directions of the chief minister, also provided Rs4 billion to the Punjab Endowment Education Fund (PEEF) for scholarships.

Officials said that a group in the Cooperatives Department was advising the chief minister that there was no need to appoint a chairman of the board, and it should be merged with the Cooperatives Department. They said that this would open the door to even greater corruption.

Cooperatives Department secretary Khalid Pervaiz said there was no such plan.

Services and General Administration Department secretary Jalal Sikandar Sultan Raja said the process to find a full-time chairman was underway. He said if the board was not convening meetings, it was due to negligence on the part of the officials concerned. He said he was not aware of any plan for a merger.

He said that after Chohan’s resignation, Tariq Mehmood, the member (colonies) of the Board of Revenue, had been given the additional charge of board chairman.

The post of interim chairman was later given to cooperatives registrar Muhammad Khan Khichi.

PCBL secretary Yasrab Hinjra said he knew nothing of a merger with the Cooperatives Department. He said the board was an autonomous body that dealt with liquidated properties. He said he was in favour of keeping the board separate as this would make it better able to assess claims fairly.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 26^th, 2011.