Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The ruling class has played havoc with the House Building Finance Corporation (HBFC) by putting the department under their direct control as the authority from the regional office was taken back and all powers were shifted to the head office.

The main purpose of making the HBFC was to grant loans to homeless people for construction of their homes.

On the one hand, House Building Finance Corporation (HBFC) inducted four top officers from a private bank on the hefty salaries of Rs 1.2 million to Rs 1.5 million per month in contradiction of court orders, whereas on the other side it declared its own permanent employees in the surplus pool.

In addition to this, the functionary has recruited 50 more officials on heavy salaries, which are given priority as compared to permanent staffers. The staff’s union has knocked the door of the Sindh High Court against this. Moreover, they also challenged the appointment of Deputy Governor State Bank of Pakistan Saeed Ahmed as Chairman HBFC.

The new chairman after assuming charge transferred all the powers of regional offices to the head office in Karachi, which has made impossible for the common man to get loans from HBFC. The corporation has commenced those projects at Lahore and Shiekhupura in which the matter of taking kickbacks from Chairman State Bank of Pakistan and Managing Director HBFC is involved. According to the rules HBFC provides 9.5 percent mark-up to State Bank of Pakistan, whereas the rulers granted contract of the corporation to a Tameer Group on 8 percent mark-up, whereas the remaining 1.5 percent would be an extra load on the department.

In 1987, an experiment was carried out by House Building Finance Corporation at Sangjani, the suburb of Islamabad but it failed to recover loans of billion of rupees even after 20 years had lapsed.

When Daily Times contacted President HBFC’s Employees Union Ashraf Khan and Secretary General Qari Mehtab Ahmed, they said that they filed an appeal in the Islamabad High Court to stop illegal appointments and to save the department from complete destruction on which the court had referred them to Sindh High Court. A petition was submitted in SHC against the illicit appointment of Chairman and heavy allowance packages to some persons.