LG Commission to open ‘can of worms’ on IMC today

Officials say revenue collected from telecoms, contract for solid waste management to be scrutinised

ISLAMABAD: A local government commission – a supra body formed by the interior ministry to oversee affairs of the federal capital – has decided to scrutinise the contract for solid waste management and collection of licence from cellular companies for Base Transceiver Station (BTS) towers by the elected local government of the city.

Sources say that the scrutiny could open a can of worms for the beleaguered Islamabad Metropolitan Corporation (IMC).

A member of the Local Government Commission (LGC) has asked the IMC to submit a year-wise report on the measures taken for meeting the corporation’s revenue collection targets, said sources while requesting anonymity as they were not authorised to speak to the media.

A document containing the agenda items for the fourth meeting of the LGC, scheduled for Thursday (today), shows that six items have been listed. The agenda, seen by The Express Tribune, includes a discussion on IMC’s inability to pay salaries to its sanitation staff, the corporation’s rules and regulations with regards to the solid waste management contract, progress on devising IMC’s rules of business, division of resources and powers between IMC and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) under the Islamabad Local Government Act 2015.

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It further includes measures taken by IMC to cut down paper mulberry trees in Islamabad to reduce the pollen count and the usage of National Highway Authority (NHA) land by Union Council (UC) 12 Chairman Muhammad Azhar.

The commission will deliberate over the items listed on the agenda list and are expected to take decisions after a thorough examination.

Sources in CDA said that the technocrat member of the LGC, Tayabba Ibrahim, has summoned annual reports from IMC’s additional collector and revenue magistrate on recovery cases since the establishment of the corporation.

Sources suspect that any financial irregularities in the IMC’s accounts may surface once records of the Metropolitan Administration Directorate (DMA) are examined, especially for issuance of licences to telecommunication companies for installing BTS towers and collecting the fee for renewal of licences.

They claimed that so far, DMA has issued 837 licences to telecommunication companies for installing BTS towers in and around the federal capital. However, an examination of fee records collected against these licenses may open a can of worms, sources said.

Officials told The Express Tribune that annual fees which DMA is supposed to collect for installing a BTS tower on private land are Rs50,000 while CDA charges some Rs150,000 per year for installing such towers on its land.

However, they said that most of the mobile tower owners are not paying anything to the DMA and that the IMC has failed to recover its dues from them.

When asked about the power of the DMA to recover dues, sources said that the directorate could only issue multiple notices to the owners of these towers. Sources blamed senior officials of the directorate for their laxity in collecting dues.

They recalled that earlier, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) had directed the IMC to present the recovery record of BTS towers but the related official had given the excuse that he had allegedly lost the file.

On suspicion of financial mismanagement, the committee had directed to conduct an audit of DMA but the matter was pushed back owing to the burden of other cases taken up by the PAC.

Sources further said that in the past, the DMA has carried out an operation and recovered as much as Rs220 million from the owners of BTS towers. Some 324 batteries used by the towers were also seized during the operation.

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They suggest that the IMC can generate massive revenue if it carries out an indiscriminate action against defaulters.

Dialogue with cellular companies

When contacted, IMC Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz conceded to The Express Tribune that there have been issues in recovering dues from some BTS tower owners.

However, he added that the DMA is in dialogue with the cellular companies while some cases have landed in different courts.

Responding to a question, he defended his performance of the IMC, noting that he has had no connection with the DMA or its activities for the past three decades.

However, during the three years the directorate has operated under his mayorship, he asserted that DMA’s revenues surged by 1,000 per cent, adding that numerous other measures to improve its performance were in the pipeline.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 12^th, 2020.