PESHAWAR, Nov 8: The Workers Union of Peshawar Development Authority has decried allegations against the PDA and vowed to take the slanderers to court for what it called running a malicious campaign to defame it.

“There is a malicious campaign against PDA by vested interests out to cover up their own illegal acts,” Haji Bakhtiar Ali, president of Workers Union of Peshawar Development Authority told a news conference here on Thursday.

Flanked by his vice president Mirza Zafar Iqbal and general secretary Jan Alam, he rebutted allegations point-by-point against the PDA and said that they had proofs and would take those behind the smear campaign to court. “They will have to pay for it,” he said.He said that no tests and interviews were required for recruitment of Class-IV employees, 20 per cent of whom were the sons of dead PDA employees. He said that the hiring was on fixed-pay basis for a period of six months, renewable contracts.

Mr Ali said that regularisation of contract was the sole discretion of the boarding council that included secretaries of local government, law, finance and establishment departments and a representative of the Public Service Commission.

He said that PDA director general had no authority to regularise employees and all such allegations to the effect were nothing but lies.

Responding to allegation of selling green belts in Hayatabad, Mr Ali said that a retired police officer, who had illegally occupied PDA’s land, had been evicted after court orders and the land so retrieved was sold out through open auction which yielded Rs20 million in revenue.

He said that a mosque built over a four kanal land had neither been removed nor scaled down. On the contrary, commercial area and a children park that was part of the mosque area was delineated. He said that the PDA would welcome private donors seeking to expand the mosque.

Regarding allotment of plots to MPAs, the workers union president said that it was the government and chief executive of the province, who had the competency to approve allotment of plots to MPAs from Swat, who had been displaced owing to security situation in their native district.

Similarly, he said, all tenders in PDA were floated, accepted or rejected by heads of their respective departments and the director general as per rules had no role in accepting or rewarding contracts to any person.

Mr Ali said that appointment of PDA director general was the sole discretion of the government and those so posted were not required to carry a certain grade or be engineers.

He alleged that a private Pashto television channel had unleashed malicious campaign, after it was evicted from Hayatabad for illegally operating in residential area. He said that high court had clear cut directives about commercial activities in residential areas and PDA could not violate its directives.