ISLAMABAD: Capital Development Authority (CDA) Member Planning and Design Asad Kayani on Thursday faced embarrassment during a meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Government Assurances for his lack of information on the status of Sector E-12 and submitting outdated documents.

Committee Chairman Mohammad Afzal Khokhar constituted a three-member subcommittee, headed by Malik Ibrar, to hold at least two hearings in a week at the CDA headquarters to address the issue the 5,000 allotees have been suffering.

The CDA announced Sector E-12 in 1985 but has failed to acquire the land. The owners of the land were told by the civic agency that they would be given plots in Sector I-12 but the deal could not be materialised. As a result, the owners to be affected by the sector refused to vacate the land.

Moreover, there were also allegations that some officials of the CDA tried to include fake land owners in the award. They also allowed people to construct buildings and boundary walls to get compensation against the built-up property (BuP). The BuP compensation is paid for the building material even to those who are not the owner of the land.

Member Planning and Design Asad Kayani had no updated information about development of stalled E-12 sector

During the verification of the 1,935 affected people in 2007, as many as 1,054 were found to be fake. The National Accountability Bureau (NAB) is investigating the scam.

During the meeting, Mr Kayani said though compensation had been paid to 80pc of the affectees except for the BuP, the landowners were not allowing the CDA to start the development work.

“We have involved deputy mayors Zeeshan Ali Naqvi and Azam Khan to address the issue. As they are elected representatives, we expect that the issue will be addressed soon. However, currently the residents have obtained a stay order from the court due to which development work cannot be started,” he said.

But at that point, Secretary Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) Nargis Ghaloo intervened and informed the committee that the stay had been vacated.

The chairman of the committee got annoyed and said the CDA had made a joke with the committee because not only the member was unaware of the latest development but also outdated information showing work could not be started due to the stay were submitted to the committee.

“I will hand over the matter to NAB and will also approach the prime minister to take up the matter,” he said.

The secretary CADD apologised on behalf of the CDA and said as it was an autonomous organisation the civic agency submitted the outdated documents to the committee without her knowledge.

“I will ensure that such lapses are not repeated in the future. However, it is a fact that there are a number of issues relating the CDA and even the Public Accounts Committee is discussing many of them,” she said.

Mr Kayani then said NAB had also identified some bogus allotees which needed to be observed.

However, MNA Malik Ibrar said NAB had already cleared the issue by identifying the bogus allotees and there was no problem if the CDA wanted to address the issue.

MNA Sher Akbar Khan, who tabled a calling attention notice over the issue, alleged that CDA officials were involved in encouraging the effectees and the developer to seek stay orders.

“As many as 5,000 allotees have been running from pillar to post but they could not get possession of the plots for about three decades,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 20th, 2017