Fake allotments in Kurri village: PAC body holds CDA officials responsible

PAC special committee directs Capital Development Authority to submit detailed reply before January 10.

ISLAMABAD: A committee of Public Account Committee (PAC) on Tuesday held high officials of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) and its Board responsible for thousands of fake allotments in the Kurri Model Village.

Describing the CDA reply in the model village scam and extension of lease of 13 nurseries adjacent to Park Road ‘unsatisfactory’, the PAC special committee directed the authority to submit detailed reply before January 10.

In the meeting, Additional Secretary of the Cabinet Division, Shahidullah Beg, raised objection over composition of CDA Board. He informed the committee that the CDA Board was comprised of its own officials.  “In such situation how one could expect justice from them”, he questioned.

Some officials from outside the authority must be included in the Board, he suggested. The committee endorsed his suggestion and it was decided to put the suggestion before the PAC.

The committee asked the CDA to submit details of the land allotments, controversial lease contract of some 13 nurseries without holding open bidding. The committee also sought record of the terms and condition of the restaurants allotted in the Saidpur Model Village.

The civic agency officials told the committee that the main accused in the Kurri Model Village scam, Director Land, Dr Wasim Shamshad, had been suspended and the Interior Ministry had been requested to put his name on the Exit Control List (ECL).

The incumbent Director Land of CDA, Waqar Khan, informed the committee that the authority would allot the plots to deserving people after removing the procedural inaccuracies.

On this, chairperson of the committee observed that a thorough inquiry was required to expose the real faces behind the scam.

The committee has also taken exception to the absence of CDA chairman in the meeting.

Saeed Ahmad Zafar, a member of the committee, said that green belt of Shah Allah Ditta had been occupied by the encroachers. He was of the view that more than 75 per cent land in Sector G-12 had been grabbed by the influential persons.

He warned the CDA officials that the committee would visit the sites to see if they had removed the encroachments or not.

In response to a query, Ghulam Sarwar Sindhu, Deputy Director General Planning Wing of CDA, first refuted the impression that influentials were grabbing the authority’s land at Malpur village but later admitted that influential persons of the area grabbed the land. He also expressed the authority’s inability to take action against them.

The committee directed CDA to involve the legal wing of the authority in this matter and take stern action against land grabbers.

Few days ago, an English newspaper and a private TV channel alleged that a ruling party senator was backing the land grabbers.

Sardar Ayaz, the member of the committee, told the CDA official to give written statement to the committee that influentials of the area were busy in grabbing the authority’s land.

However, the CDA official did not mention the names of the influentials. He only revealed that two tractors of Raja Kafaytullah, a resident of Malpur village, were callanned who was trying to grab the land.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 5^th, 2011.