Minister's Enclave: Issue of allotting houses to 'blue-eyed' lawmakers echoes at panel moot

The illegal allotment of houses to 'blue-eyed' lawmakers at Minister's Enclave, once again, echoed at a parliamentary panel meeting on Friday with its chairman expressing inability to deal with the situation.

The Senate Standing Committee on Housing and Works, which met here with Senator Mir Kabir Shahi in the chair, categorically said that 'all those [MPs] illegally occupying official residences must be evicted'.

Minister's Enclave which houses the government ministers has remained the favorite place of the MNAs having no entitlement in past and even Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government, which came into power with the slogan of 'meritocracy,' has proved no different than its predecessors.

A large number of MNAs - both male and female - who do not hold any ministerial position have managed to get allotted bungalows for themselves, using their connections with influential government ministers.

The committee chairman said that government accommodations should be given to the people who are entitled to these. He said that a large number of government employees who have been allotted official residences after a long wait of over two decades, are yet to get possession of the house as illegal occupants are not ready to vacate them.

He said that it is the responsibility of the Housing and Works Ministry and Estate Office to ensure that all illegal occupants of official flats and quarters should be evicted.

Despite the fact that there is not a single house in Islamabad which the government employees have not encroached upon, Deputy Commissioner Islamabad Hamza Shafqat said about 400 illegally built houses have been demolished.

In all the sectors of Islamabad where occupants of official residences have encroached by constructing extra rooms and renting them out to private tenants at exorbitant rates, did not get attention of the deputy commissioner as he misled the committee by saying the administration has demolished some 400 houses.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2019