ISLAMABAD: Even though the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has over 1,200 regular grade 17 employees, it has always been administered by ‘outsiders’ – officers posted on deputation from other departments. Since its establishment in the 1960s, only eight members of the authority have been from the CDA itself. The rest have come from the Pakistan Administrative Service (PAS) – formerly known as the District Management Group (DMG).

Now, even the country’s premier intelligence agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has also gotten into the act and is ‘contributing’ officers to the authority’s top management.

Sohail Durrani, a grade 19 officer with the ISI, joined the CDA in April of this year. He is currently posted as a director general for administration.

Insiders say that a senior PAS official close to the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) brought Mr Durrani into the CDA in a bid to consolidate his own position.

ISI among latest departments to send officer to civic body on senior position

An ISI spokesperson told Dawn that an ISI officer joining another government organisation ‘on deputation’ was “a routine matter”.

Narita Farhan, spokesperson for the Ministry of Defence – through which most such appointments are routed – said that the posting had been made with the consent of both the CDA and ISI, following the completion of all necessary formalities.

The CDA is governed through a board, which consists of a chairman and various members. Of the more than 100 members that have served in the CDA since the agency’s inception, only eight were regular CDA employees. Only one regular CDA officer, Shafi Sehwani, has ever become chairman in all these years.

An officer who has been at the CDA for over 20 years claimed that this was the first time he had seen an ISI officer being appointed to the CDA. Earlier, under former president Pervez Musharraf, army officers were posted to the security and enforcement directorates, but never anyone from the ISI. However, this claim could not be independently verified by Dawn.

Apart from the post of DG (administration), 34 other lucrative positions within the CDA, including those of director municipal administration, director zoo, director sector development, manager tourism, director land and rehabilitation, director estate management, CDA deputy commissioner as well as several deputy director slots are all occupied by personnel from ‘outside’ the department.

A senior CDA officer told Dawn that most of the positions occupied by those on deputation deal with billions of rupees in commercial and residential projects and properties.

He alleged that Islamabad residents had often complained about the attitude of these outsiders and alleged that CDA was maligned for being corrupt because of the bad habits of a handful of those on deputation.

According to the officer, it was something of a tradition that each new government would appoint officer of their choosing on top positions within the agency, no matter what their level of competence may be.

Like the ISI spokesperson, CDA spokesperson Mohammad Asim Khichi also told Dawn that appointments on deputation in the CDA were “a routine matter”.

He said that the authority forwards requisitions to other departments to “borrow” the services of a particular officer and, with the consent of both departments, the officer is appointed on deputation for a certain period, adding that the authority always tries to engage professionally competent individuals to serve on specific positions.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2014