Park Road Housing Scheme: Senate body concerned at financial fraud, embezzlement

ISLAMABAD: Senate Functional Committee on Problems of Less Developed Areas expressed serious concern over financial fraud and embezzlement of Rs1.40 billion in Park Road Housing Scheme including on withdrawing the mobilisation advance of Rs710 million on a fake bank guarantee.

The scheme is a joint venture of the Federal Government Employees Housing Authority (FGEHA) and the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) and is being developed near Comsats University Islamabad on Park Road in revenue estates, Tamma and Mariyan. There are a total of 4,781 plots, out of which, 2,088 are for the FGEHA and 2,693 are for the SCBA members. However, the official told the committee that housing scheme consists of 8,400 kanals but only 2,000 kanalsis under occupation.

The committee met with Senator Agha Shahzaib Durrani in the chair at the Parliament House on Friday.

The committee discussed alleged malpractices by its consultant in Park Road Housing Scheme of FGEHA and power theft.

During the briefing, the committee was told that the FGEHA has detected a massive financial embezzlement in its Park Road Housing Scheme due to forged payments against the work never carried out.

While responding the various questions of the members, Director General (DG) of the FGEHA Captain Muhammad Zafar Iqbal (retired) told the committee that according to the inquiry report, in connivance with the project director and others withdrew the mobilisation advance of Rs710 million on a fake bank guarantee. He said that the scrutiny of the IPC-3 (running bill) in the wake of the bank guarantee revealed that the accumulative amount of the first two IPCs, verified by an engineer representative (ER), is Rs283 million within a timeframe of eight months. He said that the another IPC verified by the ER was amounting to Rs1.4 billion within a period of 40 days only on which Finance Ministry indicating a massive amount in short period as compare to eight months.

Zafar Iqbal said that after indicating of Finance Ministry, as inquiry was conducting immediately. He said that he also wrote a letter to National Engineering Services Pakistan (Pvt) Ltd (NESPAK). He said that the project director had been suspended while the case had been referred to the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) for further probe.

He said that the FGEHA held a meeting with the SCBA representatives and shared with them the details of the action taken by the authority against those involved in the scam.

After discussion, the committee sought a detailed report on the scam in its next meeting.

While discussing the report by the Ministry of Energy about power theft, particularly, in Balochistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the members of the committee also expressed serious concern over the theft of electricity.

It was told to the committee that a total of 23,000 out of 26,000 illegal connections were made legal. He said that one Sub-Divisional Officer (SDO) was involved in theft in Balochistan.

Senator Saifullah Abro questioned that in many districts of Balochistan only one officer was involved while lower staff was not involved in electricity theft.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2024