Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Senate Chairman Mian Raza Rabbani has expressed his displeasure with the Capital Development Authority (CDA) on continuous delay in finalisation of an inquiry and release of payments to ‘selective contractors’ by ignoring his direction.

“The Senate chairman has taken notice of the delay in inquiry and early payments to contractors prior to the finalisation of inquiry and directed to convey his displeasure,” a letter sent to the CDA chairman reads.

The letter further directed the civic body to finalise the said inquiry on a prompt basis and submit its report before September 15 in the Senate Secretariat.

The Senate chairman had ordered the aforementioned inquiry after noticing poor quality of work on Block-C of the Senate Secretariat in December 2016 and also directed to stop all payments remaining towards contractors till the final outcome of this inquiry.

In response, the civic body had submitted a report in the second week of January 2017, which was rejected by the Senate chairman by considering it incomplete and insufficient.

He had directed the CDA to resubmit a detailed report in this regard. However, besides repeated reminders by the Senate Secretariat, the CDA has failed to conclude this inquiry report.

In the meantime, a complainant approached the Senate chairman and informed him that the civic body had released the payments to some tainted contractors by ignoring his clear directions issued to stop all payments.

The complaint accused CDA Deputy Director Mushtaq Ahmed of releasing the payments after taking bribe from the selective contractors and requested action by the CDA chairman over this discrimination.

Apart from a letter written by the Senate chairman to the CDA chairman containing his displeasure, the Senate Secretariat in a separate letter addressed to the CDA engineering member also sought within 15 days a response of the civic body on alleged release of payments to selective firms.

When contacted, Planning and Design Member Asad Mehboob Kiani, who is also holding an additional charge of CDA engineering member, said, “I had conducted the initial inquiry but the Senate chairman directed us to do a comprehensive inquiry in this case, which is being carried out by Director General Services, CDA.”

“If any officer violated the directions of the Senate chairman then he would be liable for punishment as per the rules and regulations,” Kiani said, while commenting on the alleged release of payments to some contractors. However, he referred to the services director general as the relevant person for a comment on the matter.

CDA Services Director General Najeebur Rehman also expressed his ignorance regarding the alleged release of payments and said, “I did not receive any letter in this regard… I will take corrective measure whenever it will reach my office.”

“Due to burden of routine work, I could not complete the inquiry, but it would be finalised before the deadline given by the Senate chairman,” he added.

However, reliable sources inside the CDA claimed that it was a routine matter for the CDA officers to ignore such directives because they did not take the orders of the parliamentary bodies seriously.

Published in Daily Times, September 7^th 2017.