March 11, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 7, 1424

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RAWALPINDI, March 10: The Tehsil Municipal Administration (TMA) has been suffering a loss of Rs4.2 million annually due to a controversy over the rent of the TMA shopping complex, it has been learnt.

The shopping complex was built in 1997 and handed over to the TMA in 2000. Since then, it has been lying vacant. The TMA authorities have neither rented it out nor brought it in their own use.

According to sources, the Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education, Rawalpindi, has been offering Rs0.35 million as monthly rent of the complex for the last several years, but the TMO rejected the offer. Had it been rented out to the board, Rs4.2 million would be coming to the TMA exchequer on annual basis. Therefore, the total loss incurred by the TMA for the last three years can be estimated at Rs12.5 million.

It is pertinent to mention here that after the introduction of the local government system, the Tehsil council unanimously approved a resolution in 2001 that the TMA offices should be shifted to its new building. At present, the TMA is functioning in an old building. The members had requested for provision of offices in the new building. They also approved an amount of Rs1 million for the preparation and shifting of offices there.

However, the Tehsil municipal officer refused to allow them to shift offices to the new building on the plea that irregularities had been committed in its construction, which were being probed by the National Accountability Bureau. But, later on, it transpired that no such case was with the bureau, and that it was the construction of the municipal complex being investigated by NAB.

It is to be recalled that the provincial minister for local government, Mohammad Basharat Raja, during a visit to the complex, had directed the TMA staff concerned to shift the administration offices to the shopping complex.

A TMA spokesman, when contacted, said they had been given two months by the provincial minister and work was underway to prepare the offices in the new building. He said it would ready within the given time.

About the loss, he said the offer they had received was less than what the TMA had demanded. Besides, they wanted to rent out the whole building to a single party and, for that purpose, advertisements were given 22 times, but no offer was received, he added.