Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The delay in construction of official residence of the National Assembly speaker has led to its cost rising by at least 57% over the years, revealed a document of the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) released by the Ministry of Planning and Development.

The project namely ‘Construction of Official Residence for Honorable Speaker of National Assembly in Islamabad’ was launched in 2007 and was supposed to be completed in 2009. The total cost of the project at the time of launching in 2007 was estimated at Rs 77.42 million, which has now escalated to Rs 134.45 million, thanks to ‘slackness’ by the authorities concerned. According to the documents available with Daily Times, the construction work on the speaker’s residence started on September 5, 2007, but despite the passage of over 10 years, the project has not been materialized till date. The deadline for the project, which was supposed to be completed on March 4, 2009, has been now extended to June 2018 following multiple revisions. The Central Development Working Party (CDWP) first approved the project on April 28, 2006, but failure to complete the project in time led to a revised approval by the CDWP on December 6, 2016. In the second revision, the cost of the project was raised to Rs 112.09 million.

The government has so far allocated a whooping amount of Rs 134.4 million in different fiscal years from the date of start. So far Rs 81 million have already been spent on the project. Likewise, a project for security arrangements at the Parliament House is also pending, causing loss to the national exchequer in terms of increase in costs. The project started on November 1, 2008, and was supposed to be completed on May 30, 2016.

The CDWP approved this project on November 22, 2008, and till date Rs 98 million have been allocated while Rs 74.47 million have already been released. According to document, a huge amount of Rs 534 billion has been allocated for 573 on-going PSDP projects while Rs 151 billion have been allocated for 429 new projects. A sum of Rs 62 billion has been allocated for four programmes in Special Areas including Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), Gilgit-Baltistan and Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA).

Published in Daily Times, October 28^th 2017.