Illegal housing schemes: Capital’s civic agency not cooperating, complains NAB official

CDA representatives a no-show for second consecutive meeting.

ISLAMABAD:

Some National Accountability Bureau (NAB) officials feel that the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has not been cooperating with the bureau’s investigation of illegal housing schemes in the city.

The NAB Rawalpindi director-general has written a letter to the NAB chairman complaining about the cold shoulder the CDA has shown to his subordinates tasked with initiating cases against nearly 74 housing societies that are allegedly operating illegally in CDA-administered areas, sources in NAB told The Express Tribune.

Under its Awareness and Prevention Regime, NAB Rawalpindi recently launched a campaign to inform the public about illegal housing schemes to help them avoid investing in dubious projects.

The letter was written to the NAB chairman after CDA representatives, despite assurances, failed to show up for two consecutive meetings held at the NAB Rawalpindi office.

The second meeting, held on November 28, was attended by 24 tehsil municipal officers from across the Rawalpindi division, representatives of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, officials of the Press Information Department, registrar of marketing and advertising agencies, and other key stakeholders.

According to Rawalpindi Development Authority officials, who attended the meeting, the absence of the CDA representatives raised eyebrows.

According to the officials, the Murree town municipal officer told the meeting that as many as 13 illegal housing schemes had also sprung up in Murree.

Several regulators also complained about a lack of resources to keep check on illegal housing schemes.

NAB Media Director Nawazish Ali Khan, meanwhile, expressed his ignorance about the letter. He said the agenda of the meeting was to address the monitoring and regulation of housing schemes in Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

Khan said stress was placed on the need to adopt a mechanism to preemptively stop illegal housing schemes from popping up.

He said it was also decided that periodic coordination between the organisations must be developed at provincial level to accomplish this.

He said recommendations had also been invited from regulators for developing other related strategies.

CDA Housing Societies Director Faraz Malik dispelled the impression that the CDA’s failure to participate was deliberate.

“I was fully prepared to attend the meeting but was called to attend an internal CDA meeting at the eleventh hour,” Malik said.

He said NAB had recently arranged a lecture on housing scams, which he attended.

He said CDA officials will attend the next meeting whenever it is announced.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 4^th, 2014.