Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The land mafia has occupied land worth billions of rupees owned by the Workers Welfare Board (WWB) and labour colonies.

Documents available with Daily Times show that the Pakistan Navy has developed a housing society for its employees on the WWB land and occupied plots at labour colonies owned by the working class.

The record shows that land grabbers have occupied at least 375 plots at labour colonies. They have not been retrieved even after passage of 13 years.

As per the government record, district labour officers have failed to auction of 641 shops owned by the Labour Department in Multan, Faisalabad and Gujranwala. As a result, the department is facing a loss of billions of rupees. The WWB secretary is allegedly involved in this corruption scam.

The Sindh Workers Welfare Board had to face a loss of Rs 40 million due to delay in allotment of flats to owners in Gulshan-e-Maymar in Karachi.

The report said that a technical programme was launched for matric pass students to impart them technical training, but top officials of the department embezzled Rs 110 million reserved for this training programme. Investigation into this scam is under way. The management of the labour department recruited 154 people to impart technical training to young people.

The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Workers Welfare Board embezzled more than Rs 15 million in the name of technical training programme titled MonoTech.

Under the Punjab Workers Welfare School System, more than Rs 200 million were spent from the approved budget and there was no record of this expenditure in the office. High level people are involved in irregularities in the allotment of plots at housing schemes for low-income people, but nobody has been held accountable for these irregularities. Also, irregularities were committed at high level in allotment of plots at the Labour Colony on Defence Road in Lahore. The same thing happened in Muzaffargarh.

The principal of the Punjab Workers Welfare School embezzled Rs 60 million in the name of provision of transport to students. The Pakistan Navy set up a colony for its employees after occupying 243 kanals of the land owned by the WWB. The officials embezzled Rs 22 billion from the annual budget instead of spending this money on workers’ welfare.