ISLAMABAD: The government owes Capital Development Authority (CDA) about Rs1 billion. The amount was due at the end of September but, an official of CDA said on Wednesday, it does not seem they will be receiving the funds any time soon.
In 2008 CDA allocated 37.5 acres of land for the Chinese embassy, on the directives of the federal government.
The government bought the land from CDA at Rs15,000 per square yard. The total cost was Rs2.686 billion. The two parties, according Member Finance CDA Saeedur Rehman, agreed that the payment will paid in three instalments.
The first instalment of Rs1 billion was to be paid in the first two quarters of the financial year 2009-10. The second instalment, another Rs1 billion, were to be paid in the third and fourth quarters of 2009-10, while the last instalment was due in September this year.
However, Rehman said, the government has paid Rs1.7 billion to date. While the first instalment was paid as per agreement, the second instalment was short and the government disbursed Rs0.7 billion.
“An amount of Rs0.3billion is outstanding against the second instalment, while the federal government also has to pay the third instalment, which was due in September,” Rehman told The Express Tribune.
The total outstanding dues are Rs0.982 billion, which the CDA has asked the government to release through a supplementary grant for the year 2010-11.
Rehman added that the finance secretary had assured CDA that the payment will be released in September 2009. “It has been two years now [since we allocated the land] and we still do not have the payment,” he added.
Rehman added, “We have asked the ministry of finance many times [in the past] to pay the [outstanding] amount but nothing happened, despite repeated assurances by the finance secretary.”
CDA, Rehman said, has “made it clear to the concerned quarter” that any land allotted free-of-charge to any agency or individual on federal government’s directives was to be paid for by the government.
The government had purchased the plot for Chinese mission in lieu of another plot that the Chinese government had allotted to the Pakistani embassy in Shanghai, China.
Rehman said the money could help get the cash-strapped authority with its financial crisis.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2010.
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