April 16, 2006	Sunday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 17, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, April 15: The Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives (CPDI) Pakistan has asked the housing ministry to immediately stop abusing its discretionary powers in making out- of-turn allotments of official residences in the federal capital.

“In normal circumstances, the ministry must honour the waiting list maintained for allotments, while discretionary powers should be rarely used only in favour of officers with exceptionally special needs,” said a statement issued here on Saturday.

It is highly objectionable and in violation of the norms of good governance that the waiting list has been rendered meaningless in the face of frequent use of discretionary powers to oblige favourite officers, it said.

“Major victims of this situation are those officers, who are not well connected and do not like to run after powerful politicians or a special class of powerful bureaucrats.”

In Islamabad, where house rents have sky-rocketed in recent years, there exists a very tough competition among officers for allotment of residences. In such a situation, it is a shame that no one, in their right mind, can expect to have an official residence through normal procedure.

Many officers spend a lot of time running around, soliciting recommendations from politicians or senior bureaucrats.

“It has been learnt that former prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali had allotted 432 residences out of turn in his tenure, while the housing minister, Mr Safawanullah, has made 743 out-of-turn allotments in a period of 10 months only. He has also been accused of discriminating in favour of officers belonging to his own city i.e. Karachi,” the statement said.

The entire system of allotting government residences is unfair and non-transparent. It discriminates against less effluent officers, allows top bosses of the ministry to allot government properties as personal favours, and offers a lot of room for abuse of authority and corruption.

Many officers are often seen struggling to find out which residences are unoccupied at a given time so that they could use their influence to get out-of-turn allotments for the ones that suit them.

“It has been learnt that some even have to pay bribes to junior officers in the ministry to just access timely information about residences that are unoccupied or are likely to be vacated soon,” it added.

The CPDI-Pakistan demands that the ministry should display on its website a list of all official residences along with their type, condition and addresses; information about current occupiers such when they took possession and when they would vacate; and the waiting list.

Most importantly, the ministry must develop a criterion for the use of discretionary powers, which should be used only for justifiable reasons and not to oblige favourites.

Such a criterion along with application procedures should also be made widely accessible on the website as well as through other media such as publications and notice boards, the statement said.