CDA mega projects: Audit objections refuse to go

[Lahore_Real_Estate]

ISLAMABAD, Dec 21: Audit objections raised year after year about some of the mega projects in the city have become a bane of the Capital Development Authority and the Departmental Accounts Committee (DAC) of the federal Cabinet.

Dawn has learned that DAC is meeting on Thursday to study once again the CDA replies to the objections that have failed to satisfy the Auditor General of Pakistan Revenue (AGPR) and the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) over the years.

Many CDA officials believe that having complete financial and administrative powers under the CDA Ordinance 1960, their chairman can take any decision concerning development projects and hiring and firing of CDA employees.

“We will take up the matter at appropriate forum to decide once for all whether we have to follow our own rules or the rules of other government statutory bodies,” one of the officials said on condition of anonymity.

Section 51 of the CDA Ordinance says: “The authority may make regulations, not inconsistent with the rules, if any, on all matters for which regulations are necessary or expedient and such regulations shall be published in the official Gazette.”

However, CDA officials feel that the provisions of sections 50 and 51 of the ordinance are ambiguously worded as neither of these sections lays down any guidelines about the subjects the federal government was to frame the rules.

In its latest Audit Report 2009-10, the AGPR has raised dozens of objections, but those relating to big projects like the construction of a sports complex in F-9 Park and the two highrise buildings, Centaurus and Grand Hyatt Hotel, have been persisting for many years.

CDA’s Member Planning Tahir Shamshad told Dawn that most of the objections have been comprehensively replied to by the CDA in the PAC meetings over the years.

Replies prepared by the CDA are first discussed in the DAC so that officials of the relevant divisions and ministries can go through them before facing the quick-fire sessions of PAC.

AGPR, and subsequently PAC, have repeatedly asked why CDA allowed the constructors of the hotel near the Convention Centre and the Centaurus apartment complex in F-8 sector with no limit on their heights when the Civil Aviation Authority
rules do not permit any building higher than 420 feet within a radius of 15km of Benazir International Airport that covers entire Islamabad.

AGPR also objected to the CDA allowing unlimited covered area to the two highrise buildings.

Another question put to the civic body was why it built 24 suites in the sports complex in the Fatima Jinnah Park?
Officials of the CDA planning wing explained that the family suites were built as originally the complex was to be a Citizens’ Club which was changed into a sports complex on the directive of the Supreme Court.

These suites could still be used to put up the sportsmen from other cities participating in the sports activities of the complex.
That reply provoked the question why CDA did not provide sports and recreational activities in the areas set for the purpose in the spacious Lake View Park.

And CDA’s reply was that inadequate power supply was the main reason for delay in installation of such facilities. But other options were being studied.