Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: A number of technicalities and demarcation of powers created by the recently repatriated Member Planning, Waseem Ahmed Khan, are waiting to welcome the newly appointed Member, Asad Mehboob Kiani. It is also being whispered that his appointment will be challenged on the basis of his possessing dual nationality.

Asad Mehboob Kiani, a Grade 20 officer of the CDA, has recently been appointed as the Member Planning and Design by the Mayor and Chairman of the CDA, Shaikh Ansar Aziz, after a long tussle with the powerful bureaucracy.

Kiani is being considered as the closest aide of Shaikh Ansar Aziz.Currently, he has a dual charge. He was already working on the post of Chief Metropolitan Corporation (CMO) at the Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad.

His public face as CMO is his first problem which will create hurdles for him to maintain his relationships with the CMO office while performing his duties as the CDA’s Member Planning. For instance,being the CMO he has to accommodate a lot of people ranging from a common person to the elected representatives of the MCI.

Furthermore, the mayor is an elected one and people have exceptions that their outstanding issues would be resolved by him. They feel it is easier to approach Ansar Aziz as compared to the previous heads of the Authority.

The second important problem for the Member Planning is to accommodate a large pressure generated by politicians, traders and builders for taking due and undue favours, as his predecessor had created several bottlenecks and he had scrutinise the rules and regulations by his interpretations and by creating precedents.

The previous member not only avoided allowing any change in the original terms and conditions of the allotment letter, but also reversed some cases, for example, additional stories and basements,which are now in the lime light.

As a result, it is now quite impossible to favour anybody by deviating from the bye-laws as several officers are already facing inquiries and suspensions in this regard.

Accommodating the illegal housing societies will also be a challenge as the repatriated Waseem Ahmed Khan had make this task almost impossible.

He prepared a list of more than 100 illegal housing societies and made the NOC mandatory for the housing schemes whereas he had also sought payment to use the facilities being provided by the CDA i.e. roads.

He also introduced several other rules which clutch the property giants, i.e. charging fees on high rise buildings according to the Floor Area Ration (FAR) instead of taking charges on the plot size only.

Action against non-confirming use of residential buildings would also add embarrassment for the member planning, when he will fail to favour anybody in this regard as no officer in the Building Control would take the risk of the Supreme Court’s enmity.

Last but not the least is his dual nationalism, which is going to be challenged in the Islamabad High Court. According to sources some people in the Engineering Wing are preparing to go to the court against his appointment.

While responding on the aforementioned issues, Mr. Kiani said: “Yes, I have a dual nationality, but there is no illegality as the post of a Member Planning is not constitutional.” He said further; “I am a law abiding citizen and if the case will go into the court then I will face it.”

He assured that nothing would be done beyond the rules and regulations and he had firm commitment to serve on this post with full sincerity and honesty.