PAC takes serious note of KPT land grabbing scam

[LahoreEstate]

Sunday, September 13, 2009

By Muhammad Anis

ISLAMABAD: Taking serious note of the scam of grabbing precious land owned by the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) in Karachi, Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan has summoned the federal secretary Ports and Shipping to appear before a PAC meeting on October 2.

“Yes, I have summoned the federal secretary Ports and Shipping to explain the efforts of some influentials to grab precious land,” Chaudhry Nisar Ali confirmed to The News. The PAC chairman said the land grabbing scam as reported by The News on Saturday is a very serious matter and the PAC considers it as its national duty to take up the matter. “The hands behind the scam must be exposed,” he said.

It merits to mention here that Kamran Khan in an investigative news story had in detail reported the scandal of land grabbing with the alleged patronage of a high up. In his report, he said the KPT is facing tremendous pressure from Islamabad to withdraw its claim of ownership over 3.6 million square yards of precious land adjacent to the most expensive Clifton area in favour of less than a dozen individuals.

According to the report, the minimum price of the land measuring 3.6 million square yards is Rs 72 billion in the open market. The report said the KPT is apparently trying to protect its original ownership on this land, popularly called “Mai Kolachi” for port and city development while strong power players have pressurised the port authority to surrender its claim in favour of less than a dozen individuals, the so-called claimants of this land.

Chaudhry Nisar while taking up the issue of slow pace of development work on various CDA projects, also summoned the additional secretary Cabinet Division and the CDA chairman to appear before the PAC at its meeting on October 1 at 1 pm. They have been asked to explain delay in completion of expansion, extension and rehabilitation work of the Islamabad Highway up to Rawat. The work on this mega project was to be completed by March this year but the delay besides causing inconvenience to traffic, could also result in escalation of cost of the project.

http://thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=24498