100 kanals of NIH land leased to minor

The apex federal investigator has been asked to probe how could 100 kanals of land of a national health institute be leased to a minor.

This emerged as a sub-committee-VII of the National Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) reviewed on Tuesday audit paras regarding the illegal lease of land by the National Institute of Health (NIH).

Convening under the chairmanship of MNA Riaz Fatyana, the body reviewed audit paras from the financial year 2009-10 and the audit reports, special audit reports and performance audit reports for the fiscal year 2010-11 for the ministries of health, States and Frontier Regions (SAFRON), Overseas Pakistanis, Food Security and Research, Kashmir Affairs and Gilgit-Baltistan, Communication and Inter-Provincial Coordination.

Audit paras for 2010-11 showed that the National Institute of Health (NIH) agreed with an individual to lease out around 100 kanals of its land for farming purposes.

However, the contract was allegedly signed with the son of an NIH employee who did not even possess a computerised national identity card (CNIC) at the time because he was not old enough.

To make matters worse, instead of just working on the 100 kanals of land which had been leased to them, the contractor proceeded to encroach on an additional 40 kanals of land.

The audit paras further showed that the NIH’s management had ordered an inquiry into the matter in 2006 which had shown that the land had been leased without openly tendering it.

The committee directed that the matter should be probed by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) and trace those responsible for causing a loss to the exchequer apart from violation of other rules.

The committee also discussed the audit para for a loss of Rs1.51 million on account of 4.7 metric tonnes of expired seeds.

The committee recommended that the Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation (PASSCO) increase their storage capacity.

Committee members were of the view that if PASSCO enhances its capacity, it will be able to eradicate black marketing by retailers and wholesalers if they have sufficient stocks to control the supply of staple commodities.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 30^th, 2020.