ISLAMABAD: An audit of the accounts of the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) has exposed shortcomings on the part of its administration, which failed to protect land worth millions of rupees from encroachment.
According to an audit report, prime land in Islamabad’s G-7/1 sector and plots in Khuzdar have been encroached upon; the SBP management did not allot 82 apartments in its staff colony to employees and paid Rs22.8 million to its staff as house rent.
The report revealed that SBP land worth Rs77 million was encroached upon by the Madressah Ghousia Monia Ziaul Aloom in 2002-2003. It stated that the matter was reported to the management on April 16 2013, and “the management replied that it had been pursuing the case with the relevant authorities”. However, the auditors found that the reply was “not tenable”.
In 1993, when the SBP Staff Colony in G-7/1 was being built, a pesh imam was appointed to lead prayers at a mosque for resident employees. In 1997, the management decided not to construct any residential accommodation on SBP property across Pakistan and ongoing construction was abandoned.
The bank retired the pesh imam under the Voluntarily Separation Scheme in 2001, who handed over the management of the temporary mosque to a friend. The new administrator had the seminary registered through misrepresentation.
Registered madressah built on prime SBP land in G-7/1 cannot be removed now
When the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) took up the matter, SBP officials said they had asked the Islamabad chief commissioner to retrieve the land, who had refused to do so on the pretext that he could not take action against the seminary administrator because the seminary had been registered with the Joint Stock Company, and that he could only take action against unregistered seminaries.
Chairing the PAC meeting, PPP’s Syed Naveed Qamar expressed his displeasure, saying this answer was not adequate. PAC member Sardar Ashiq Hussain Gopang criticised the SBP management’s lethargic attitude, saying the land would not have been encroached upon had it been the personal property of bank officials.
The SBP official responded that the bank had asked the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to erect fences surrounded the land, but the authority had not cooperated with them.
He said the SBP has filed a suit against the incumbent pesh imam of the seminary and won the case in civil court, but the other party appealed the decision in the Islamabad High Court where the matter is pending adjudication.
Audit authorities also informed the committee that since the SBP did not utilise its 7,800 square yards of land (worth Rs117 million) in G-7/1, in 1999 the then prime minister transferred the land to the Pakistan Housing Authority, which constructed residential apartments on SBP land and sold them to individuals.
The auditors said the bank had demanded alternate land from the CDA to set up a cash centre but the request was denied.
The report also said SBP land worth Rs25 million was being encroached upon by private parties in Khuzdar, due to inefficiency on the part of the management.
Mr Qamar directed the SBP to set up a cell to retrieve land that has been encroached upon and to monitor its immovable assets.
Published in Dawn, September 29th, 2016