Daily Times

ISLAMABAD: The day-to-day affairs of Capital Development Authority (CDA) and decisions on highest level are a big hindrance due to long vacant position of authority’s three permanent board members out of total six. The members to head environment, estate and finance wings are unavailable in the authority from last several months.

The supreme decision making body of the CDA is its board, which is comprised on the Chairman, Member Finance & Accounts, Member Administration, Member Planning & Design, Member Engineering, Member Environment and Member Estate, whereas the Commissioner Rawalpindi and Chief Commissioner Islamabad are also the ex-officio members of the CDA Board.

The post of Member Estate is lying vacant for the last one-and-a-half years while that of the Member Finance for eight months, whereas a grade 20 officer of the CDA, Sanaullah Aman, was also given the extra charge of Member Environment.

The acting charge of Member Estate is currently owned by Waseem Ahmed who is Member Planning and Design in the authority, whereas the Member Engineering Shahid Sohail has also given the extra charge of Member Finance.

An insider told Daily Times that the routine work in civic body is facing delays and things are mismanaged due to the absence of permanent board members. People are facing problems as their files are pending before concerned members even from months just because the relevant members have dual charge and they are overburdened.

One of the important organ of the authority is Estate and Land Wing, which is custodian of the public land in capital has also become a hub of corruption and malpractices as in recent week the whole story become surfaced when the real estate agents of Islamabad got angry over the corruption of body’s land and estate department and protested in front of Chairman’s office.

A Deputy Director of CDA Human Resource Department on the condition of anonymity revealed; “the high ups of the authority are not willing to fill the vacant posts as they want to keep their grip on all the matters.”

He also said; “there is a need of at least four members to get approval of any agenda item in CDA board meeting, but in absence of three members anybody can easily take approval of any matter by managing only two members of CDA.”

The things are easily manageable to favour any blue eyed and to cover irregularities as currently two members have dual charges, which enables them to itself initiate a case in the capacity of a member and then itself can approve the same case by using the power as another member.

For instance the Shahid Sohail is Member Engineering, but he has the extra charge of member finance. He has the authority to launch any project by virtue of his position as member engineering and at the same time he can easily approves bills related to this project by using his powers as member finance, a source added.

A former member of the authority commented; “Prime Minister should take notice of worst state of affairs in the civic authority and fill all the vacant post earliest because it is essential to put house into the order.