Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: Internal rifts and a ‘cold war’ among the board members of the Capital Development Authority (CDA) are on the rise nowadays as the secretary board has so far failed to issue the minutes of the last meeting held on 24 February.

Though, a fresh meeting has been called to discuss the seven-point agenda by the secretary’s office, but besides the lapse of three weeks, the minutes of the last meeting are still awaited and this is raising question marks within the close circles.

In routine, the secretary board issues the minutes within a few days after any board meeting is held. The minutes of a board meeting include the agenda items and the decision taken by the CDA board.

The Secretary CDA Board, Asif Shah Jahan, who is quite professional in doing his job while responding on the issue confirmed that the minutes of the 2nd board meeting of 2017 had not been finalised yet and it was expected that the same would be issued in the next two to three days.

The unusual delay in the issuance of the board minutes is creating speculations in the corridors of the civic body that the members of the authority are at loggerheads with each other.

“There was a visible division among the board members as the Member Administration Yasir Peerzada, Member Finance Dr Fahad Aziz and Member Estate Khushal Khan, were opposing the agenda items related to the Member Planning and Design, Asad Mehboob Kiani, who was backed by the Mayor of Islamabad and Chairman CDA, Shaikh Ansar Aziz, in the meeting,” an insider briefed on the condition of anonymity.

A former member of the CDA explained about the routine practices of the board meetings on the condition of anonymity and said: “It’s quite a strange thing for me that the minutes have not been issued even after the passing of three weeks as we have no such example in the past.”

“There was a difference of opinion on matters, but we defer such controversial issues when we failed to bring about a consensus” he added.

Earlier, soon after the last board meeting, the secretary CDA board had issued a notice through which he asked all the members to send their summaries to the Law Directorate CDA for its nod before forwarding to his office.

The Chairman Office of the CDA considered the notification as a smart move to make a check on all the board’s related work by the Member Administration as the law directorate directly reports to him.

Mr. Ansar Aziz reportedly expressed his extreme displeasure upon the move. In result, another notification had been issued to convey that only those summaries should be sent to the law directorate, which involved a legal matter.

Today, the CDA board is once again going to meet in the headquarters of the CDA to discuss a seven point agenda and it is expected that a strong difference of opinion would emerge among the board members as the Member Administration has already raised his concerns over some of the agenda items.