05 December 2004	Sunday	22 Shawwal 1425

LAHORE, Dec 4: The Anti-Corruption Establishment, Punjab, has held the Parks and Horticulture Authority responsible for a faulty agreement with a firm for the development of an amusement park at Doongi Ground in Gulberg.

The PHA had signed an agreement with the Entertainment Xtra in May 2003 to develop the park on 44 kanals of the ground on M.M Alam Road for a lease period of 25 years with Rs225,000 monthly rent.

Under the agreement, the firm had to develop mini-sports field (astro turf with high rise flood lights), skating ring, go-karting track, underground pistol range and road level food spine and spectators pavilion.

The firm was supposed to furnish the design, architectural, working drawing and structural maps by May this year and had to develop the park subsequently by November.

However, it could not even submit the design of the project to the authority on time despite acquiring the possession of the ground by Nov, 2003, after the completion of its earth filling.

The ACE initiated the inquiry against the authority and the firm on the direction of Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi last month and submitted its findings to the chief secretary on Friday.

The ACE also probed as to why the land worth millions of rupees was given to the firm for such a meagre amount. However, it was held that since the project was not commercial in nature a high price could not be charged against it.

During investigation, the ACE also observed that it seemed that the PHA had already decided to award the contract to Entertainment Xtra and the whole procedure was adopted just to make it look transparent.

Besides, the short listed firms were not given enough opportunity to present their case to the competent authority, it noted.

The establishment said the firm had approached the Lahore High Court against the cancellation of the contract by the authority.

"If the PHA had some reservations regarding the project, it should have forwarded the case to the government through department concerned for revision or cancellation of the contract instead of avoiding the lessee or keeping silence".

"The agreement with the lessee has been signed by the authority on the land which belonged to the provincial government and the Board of Revenue was the only competent authority to approve the agreement."

The establishment observed that since there was no clause for taking action against the lessee for ultimate default its security amounting to Rs675,000 could not be forfeited.

In the light of this case, the AEC recommended that all PHA contracts during the last five years should be scrutinized by a high-level committee constituted by the government.