ISLAMABAD, Oct 2: Interior Minister Makhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat on Thursday suspended nine officials of the Capital Development Authority (CDA), including two directors, for showing negligence in their duties, a ministry official told Dawn.

The minister issued these directives during his surprise visit to the CDA headquarters. He visited the directorates of land and rehabilitation, building control section, one-window operation and design wing.

Besides, suspending nine officials, the minister reprimanded the member planning, Maqbool Elahi, and warned him to remove all impediments in the working of the directorates under his supervision.

The official said the two directors who had been suspended were director land and rehabilitation Sultan Sikandar Raja and director building control section Javed Iqbal. A deputy director land and rehabilitation, Khalil Ahmed Soomro, has also been suspended.

When the minister came to the directorate he found Mr Soomro’s room locked from inside.

The room was opened on the directives of the minister and the official sitting inside could not clarify his position as to why he had locked his room.

Others who have been suspended include deputy director building control section Nadeem Hussain Kazmi, building inspector Tariq Mehmood, building inspector Qamaruz Zaman Kiani, a lower divisional clerk Mohammad Aftab and an additional director building control section.

After the visit, the minister called the CDA chairman, Chaudhry Abdul Rauf, and other senior officials to the ministry. He asked the chairman to abide by the suspension orders and issue a notification in this regard, the source said.

During his visit, the minister expressed his dissatisfaction over the performance of the CDA saying that a ‘major surgery’ was required to streamline its working.

Earlier, the minister asked all CDA officials to hear public complaints at least for two hours in a day. He said public meeting timing mentioned at all doors should be followed.

He stressed the need for establishing separate counters for women in the One-Window Operation directorate. He said more women should be inducted in the authority on vacant posts to deal with female complainants.