Parliamentary panel drubs NHA for corruption, slow progress

A parliamentary panel on Thursday drubbed National Highway Authority (NHA) for its lame duck progress on various road projects, saying rampant corruption sans development was the most favourite subject of the authority. The special committee of National Assembly, which met here with deputy Speaker Faisal Karim Kundi in the chair, put tough questions to NHA officials, which they were unable to reply instead they tried to evade the subject as they are more tuned to such things.
Marvi Memon of PML-Q and Laiq Muhammad Khan MNAs came hard on the state of affairs in NHA, which are going on unabated and mega road projects of national importance were being ignored at the cost of hard-earned taxpayers' money. They were of the view that people at the helm of the affairs in NHA are not accustomed to check corrupt practices, which has become rule of the day in every institution, demanding that such black sheep should be taken to task to out the country on path to development.
The interesting aspect of the debate was that on listening to all the accusations, acting chairman NHA Junaid Ahmad could not resist of offering resignation if {rampant} corruption in NHA is proved. Laiq Muhammad Khan of JUI-F quickly observed that NHA corruption scams have no match with Hajj corruption case and threatened to approach the Supreme Court about the malpractices allegedly being committed in different projects of NHA in Hazara Division of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
He told the committee that he had written to the Prime Minister on the massive irregularities in award of contracts, pertaining to different NHA projects but no response has been received. Commenting on the MNA's allegation, the acting chairman NHA admitted that inquiry was conducted into this particular case, but he was unable to take action against the elements involved in this particular contract awarding-scam.
The NHA top man ran out of patience after listening to committee members who took him to task again and again and he told the committee in an unequivocal term that the affairs of the authority are being run from somewhere else, which was a startling response by Junaid.
Marvi Memon said that a largescale corruption has engulfed the NHA. She also cautioned to file a petition in Supreme Court for the road accidents occurring due to bad conditions of the roads being managed by NHA in Thatha district of Sindh. The chairman of the committee also expressed his annoyance over the non-serious attitude of the authority for not responding to eight letters written by him about the road conditions in his home district DI Khan. He minced no words to criticise federal minister communication Arbab Alamgir Khan, who could never give satisfactory answers to queries of the members on the floor of the house.