CDA Officials to get houses based on seniority. ILLUSTRATION: MAHA HAIDER
After scoring a job in the Capital Development Authority’s (CDA), officials pull whatever strings they can to get government accommodation to avoid paying abnormally high rent in the federal capital.
Because of the huge gap between the number of employees and housing units in the civic agency’s pool, they solicit illegal recommendations from influential officers and even parliamentarians and ministers to get a house allotted in their name.
But now that the CDA chairman has withdrawn the discretionary powers of its officers, there is hope that allotments will be made in accordance with the general waiting list that is maintained on the basis of seniority of officials.
“Following the chairman’s direction, I moved a summary a few days ago to withdraw the discretionary powers of Administration member and director general (DG) regarding the allotment of government accommodations. The summary has been approved now,” said Administration DG Naeem Rauf, who holds the additional charge of CDA spokesperson.
Due to loopholes in the allotment policy, the Administration member and DG enjoyed discretionary powers to make allotments bypassing the general waiting list. This resulted in the allotment of houses to officials, who enjoyed strong political backing, while those who weren’t well-connected had to wait for years to get official accommodation.
According to the record available with The Express Tribune, there are 18,635 sanctioned posts in the civic agency on which 13,586 officials have been appointed, whereas the number of houses available in nine categories is only 1,729.
A provision that has worsened the situation over the years is the preferential clause that permits a child of an employee to stake a claim over a house allotted to the father, once he or she gets a job in the CDA. The allotment of houses to such families has surged to over 800.
Some 30 officials managed to get houses better than their entitlement, while another 30 have occupied houses out of turn. Some 175 houses are under litigation.
An official of CDA’s administration wing said the number of officials on the general waiting list has crossed 4,200, while houses in CDA’s pool were occupied till 2016.
During the tenure of former CDA chairman Kamran Lashari, a decision was taken to construct 4,000 residential units for the civic agency’s employees. “During a special CDA board meeting the proposal was approved, but the idea was dropped later,” the official said, adding that it was impossible to execute the project owing to prevailing financial crises.
Published in The Express Tribune, August 21st, 2013.
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